More recently, a new coach has appeared at Cardiff Football Club - Craig Bellamy, who until recently was a famous striker of various English and Welsh clubs. What kind of person is this?
The main thing
July 10, 2016 ended the European Football Championship. The peculiarity of this tournament was that for the first time 24 national teams of European countries took part in it. This became possible after numerous changes to the UEFA regulations that were carried out by the former great French football player Michel Platini, who led European football. Obviously, along with the disadvantages of this format of the tournament, which can be attributed, first of all, to a decrease in the level of football, there are obvious pluses. First of all, such advantages include the fact that small countries (which have never been successful in football) got a real chance to break into the final part of the tournament and prove themselves.
Craig Bellamy and Wales team
A striking example when the team and its individual players seized the opportunity is the team of Wales and its players: Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey. They not only seized the chance, reaching the final part of the tournament, but reached the semi-finals, in fact, along with the Icelandic national team, became the main sensation of the tournament. However, in the same Wales, there was a galaxy of football players who, despite a successful club career, were not able to fully realize themselves at the national team level. The clearest example is Ryan Giggs. In addition, there are a large number of players who do not have stellar status, who also did not have the opportunity to prove themselves in large tournaments of national teams. A typical example of such a football player is Craig Bellamy. He played 79 matches for the Wales team, scoring 19 goals, but, unfortunately, could not take part in any major tournament of the national teams (European Championship or World Cup).
Craig Bellamy Club Career
Craig Bellamy was born July 13, 1979 in the city of Cardiff, which is the capital of Wales. His career originates in the Norwich club, for which he debuted in the 1996/1997 season and where he showed himself quite clearly. At the end of the season, he moved to Coventry. In addition, during his career, he played with varying degrees of success for Newcastle United, Liverpool, Celtic, Manchester City, Blackburn Rovers, West Ham. Our hero ended his career on May 22, 2014, being a Cardiff City player who played in the Premier League. In total for different clubs Craig Bellamy, a football player, spent over 400 games in which he scored over 120 goals.
Trophies
Craig Bellamy, whose biography is considered in the article, is not spoiled by victories. The first trophy of our hero is the Scottish Cup, which he won in 2005 during a short-term performance for Celtic. In 2006, as part of Liverpool, he won the English Super Cup. In the final match, Chelsea was defeated. With the same “Liverpool”, but already in 2012 the League Cup was won.
In addition to team trophies, Craig has a number of personal awards. His first individual trophy was the achievement of 2001-2002, when he was recognized as the best young player of the Premier League submarine according to the PFA. He was also recognized as a player of the month of the Premier League (2 times) and the Scottish Premier League (1 time). He was recognized as the player of the year during a performance for Blackburn Rovers (2005-2006) and in Wales (2007). Another achievement of our hero can be considered that he scored goals for eight teams of the Premier League.
The Last of the Mohicans
Among football fans, there is a different opinion about which country’s championship is the strongest. But everyone agrees that the Premier League surpasses all other championships in the thirst for struggle and emotionality. The same characteristic can be applied to Craig Bellamy. Despite the fact that he was never a star of the first magnitude, he had a reputation as a player of a sufficiently high qualification. Craig did not stay in clubs for a long time. The reason for this is not his playing qualities, but his character. Craig’s entire career has been accompanied by various kinds of scandals. One of the trainers, Graham Sunes, described his character most succinctly, who said that he did not meet so much anger in one person.
The most striking manifestation of the bad character of our hero is the incident that occurred before the most important match in the Champions League with Barcelona. Craig Bellamy, whose photo after this incident circled all the media, had a fight with a teammate. While everyone was expecting that after this conflict he would be expelled from the team, the coach entrusted the place in the line-up and, in fact, the result of the match was won, in which Liverpool won. Bellamy scored a goal and gave the assist. Also, his entire career was accompanied by scandals related to drinking, skirmishes with teammates, coaches, and journalists. Currently, there are units of players with this character, unlike in the old days, when almost every British player was ready to "die" on the field, and outside the field it was considered a usual thing to visit drinking establishments and not always exemplary behavior.