{"id":185356,"date":"2025-10-08T11:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T11:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/185356\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T11:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T11:38:12","slug":"a-boxing-promoter-would-not-put-wales-up-against-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/185356\/","title":{"rendered":"A boxing promoter would not put Wales up against England"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wales head coach Craig Bellamy during a press conference at the Vale Resort, Hensol. Photo Adam Davy\/PA Wire.<\/p>\n

Craig Bellamy says \u201cridiculous\u201d England are so good that a boxing promoter would not match them against his Wales side.<\/p>\n

The two teams meet in a Wembley friendly on Thursday for the first time since England coasted to a 3-0 group-stage victory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n

England ended up reaching the quarter-finals of that tournament, either side of two European Championship final appearances under Sir Gareth Southgate.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Expenses<\/p>\n

Thomas Tuchel has since succeeded Southgate with the target to win the World Cup next summer \u2013 and Bellamy says the German\u2019s expenses at the Football Association are probably the same as his Wales wages.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngland have a ridiculous squad, like France,\u201d Bellamy said ahead of Wales\u2019 first visit to Wembley since a 3-0 defeat five years ago played behind closed doors due to Covid-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a transfer market value of 1.4billion, ours is \u00a3170million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were a boxing promoter you wouldn\u2019t put us together. It wouldn\u2019t be allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t go off values, but the simple fact is they don\u2019t just have one team. They have two, three, four and France and others have the same level.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Perfect preparation<\/p>\n

Bellamy \u2013 who sees the Wembley fixture as perfect preparation for next Monday\u2019s World Cup qualifier with Belgium in Cardiff \u2013 is just 12 games into his managerial career having made the best start of any Wales boss.<\/p>\n

The former Liverpool, Manchester City and Newcastle forward stayed unbeaten until his 10th game \u2013 the 4-3 World Cup qualifying loss to Belgium in June \u2013 and his record reads six wins, four draws and two defeats.<\/p>\n

Bellamy is relishing the opportunity to go head-to-head with Tuchel, a Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup winner at Chelsea who has won domestic titles in France and Germany.<\/p>\n

The 46-year-old says he has an understanding of his methods due to Vincent Kompany, who he assisted at Anderlecht and Burnley, succeeding Tuchel at Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n

\u201cTuchel\u2019s an incredible manager, his record is proven,\u201d said Bellamy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have some sort of an insight because the club he left I know people who have gone in there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get a bit of an insight there of how he works and it\u2019s very impressive. His tactical detail is top level and I wanted to be up against that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee how you\u2019re going to adapt because he will. I will get to learn from that. I\u2019d love to get to that level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuchel made the eye-catching decision to leave Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham out of his squad for the Wales friendly and the World Cup qualifier in Latvia.<\/p>\n

But Bellamy said: \u201cEngland have loads of great players and that\u2019s the honest truth. One right-back went out injured the other day and there\u2019s only 24 more to go!<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got 60-odd players. I\u2019d love us to be stacked like them. It\u2019s my driving force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support our Nation today<\/p>\n

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\n independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by
\n the people of Wales.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales head coach Craig Bellamy during a press conference at the Vale Resort, Hensol. Photo Adam Davy\/PA Wire.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-185356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}