Football: Giggs can help to repair battered reputation

WHATEVER CRIME the Wales football team have committed in the past, they have served their time. It has been 40 years since they qualified for the final stages of a World Cup or European Championship and their current prospects are not exactly auspicious.

It is typical of their misfortune that while Scotland have avoided any World Cup finalists, Wales have two in Group One barring their way to Euro 2000. No country would be sanguine trying to finish above Italy and Denmark, but Bobby Gould's team are ranked 101st in the world and have been humbled recently by Moldova, Georgia and Tunisia.

You have to go back 23 months since Wales last won a competitive match, against the less-than-mighty San Marino, and their last outing in Tunis resulted in a lamentable 4-0 defeat. It is easy to be defeatist, as Gould realises. "I have to create a new, positive attitude," he said. "We have to be mentally strong."

Tonight that fortitude will be tested against Italy at Anfield, a fixture that could define Wales' future. Win and the European Championship qualification campaign will receive an injection of hope, lose and their realistic hopes of playing in Belgium or the Netherlands in two years could be over. A home defeat would make an already unlikely task of finishing in the top two - Denmark, Switzerland and Belarus are the other teams in the group - an even more remote possibility.

Home is a relative word, of course, as tonight's match is in Liverpool because the national stadium in Cardiff is being rebuilt. It is within commuting distance of Wales' traditional northern football hotbed, however, and there are hopes that Merseysiders will attend because of the glamour of the opposition. "Back Wales for the night," Gould urged, "you can go back to being Liverpudlians on Sunday morning."

Not that Italy, whose season does not begin until 13 September, will be brimming with household names. Dino Zoff, appointed as coach in succession to Cesare Maldini after the World Cup, has eschewed the 16 Italians plying their trade in England, preferring home-based players in a squad of 22. The best known are Roberto Baggio and Alessandro Del Piero, although one or the other played in the World Cup, not both, and a more representative member of the party is Fabio Cannavaro, whose high reputation within his profession has not extended to international recognition.

Gould watched the Italians in several matches in France and was so impressed by Cannavaro he had a video made of his performances as a teaching aid for aspiring Welsh defenders. "I'm in raptures over him," he said. "He's the best defender in the world. He's only about 5ft 8in but he doesn't let you jump, he knows how to tackle, he knows when to defend and he knows not to go over the halfway line. If I was a Premiership manager with pounds 20m I'd buy him."

Gould's enthusiasm for one player was not matched by his staff for the entire Italian team. Only a defeat on penalties to the eventual winners, France, halted their World Cup, but the tournament exposed a side with a sound defence, strong attack but with a midfield that lacked creativity. Their last match was a 16-1 victory this week, although it ought to be stressed that it was against the Juventus youth team.

"I wasn't impressed, to be honest," Neville Southall, who is coaching the Welsh squad, said. "I watched them against Austria in France and, although they were sound tactically, they lacked a little bit going forward.

"Wales are re-emerging. We've got a good enough squad here to take on anyone in the world. Anfield suits good footballers and we've got loads. We're a much, much better team than people make out."

That team will remain a mystery until shortly before the kick-off -"I'll announce my side," Gould said, "when Dino Zoff lets me know what his is" - although it is safe to presume that Ryan Giggs will be selected. The Manchester United player is expected to get a free role behind Nathan Blake and Mark Hughes and usually raises his game when faced by the bigger nations in world football.

Possibly his best game in a Welsh shirt came three years ago in the last European Championship qualification match, when he caused anxiety in a German defence that was solid enough to win the tournament proper the following summer. "The only thing wrong with Ryan Giggs," Berti Vogts said at the time, "is that he is not German."

"Just having Ryan here puts us halfway there," he said. "He gives everyone a lift." A victory over Zoff's Italian side will not push Wales halfway to Euro 2000, but it will be a significant step towards restoring their battered international reputation.