Cymru's Journey: From World Cup Heartbreak to Nations League Challenges
Josh Sheehan walks into camp with promotion still fresh in his legs and disappointment still sharp in his mind.
Days after helping Bolton Wanderers climb into the Championship through the League One play-offs, the midfielder has swapped club euphoria for international unfinished business. The high of Wembley now gives way to the hard edge of what might have been.
Because for Cymru, March still stings.
World Cup pain, Nations League fuel
Craig Bellamy’s side were a penalty shoot-out away from the FIFA World Cup, only to fall to Bosnia & Herzegovina. The scars from that night have not faded, and Sheehan is in no mood to pretend otherwise.
“Of course there’s disappointment,” he said. “We all wish we were preparing for the World Cup right now, but we’re not. It’s disappointing, but we have to learn from it.
“We believe we should have been there, but now our focus is on the Nations League and the challenges ahead.”
That is the pivot now. No dwelling, no self-pity. Just a clear demand to turn regret into edge.
“We’ve got to learn from what happened and look forward. We’ve got some big games coming up and that’s the level we believe we should be at. We want to keep moving forward as a group.”
Those “big games” are no empty phrase. In the autumn, Cymru step into League A of the UEFA Nations League, thrown in with Portugal, Norway and Denmark. It is elite company, unforgiving and relentless. Exactly the arena where Sheehan believes this squad belongs.
Ghana test brings World Cup intensity to Cardiff
Before that, a different kind of examination. World Cup-bound Ghana arrive in Cardiff on Tuesday night (7.45pm), using the friendly as a tune-up for the tournament. For Bellamy, it is a dress rehearsal of a different sort: a chance to see how his side cope with the physicality, pace and ruthlessness they will face in League A.
“They’re a good team and they’ve got some very big, important players who are at the top of their game,” Sheehan said. “We know going into the game it’s going to be tough.”
Ghana will treat it like a staging post on the road to the World Cup, a night to sharpen combinations and test their front line.
“It’s a warm-up game for them going into the World Cup, and I think they’re a nation going into it looking to give it a real go,” Sheehan added. “So we know it’s going to be a tough game, but we’re more than confident that if we do what we do and perform to our levels, then it’s going to be a good game.”
The respect is clear. So is the defiance.
“It’s one of those games where, going forward, we know they’ve got threats we’re going to have to be wary of. But we also look at it from our perspective as well, we know we can hurt them too.”
A familiar face in new colours
For Sheehan, there is also a personal subplot. Across the halfway line he could find a player he knows only too well: Ghana forward Antoine Semenyo, once his team-mate at Newport County and now one of the Premier League’s most dangerous attackers.
“I’ve played with Antoine Semenyo before, and he’s done so well in his career, now at Man City,” said Sheehan.
Back then, Semenyo was a teenager on loan, still growing into his frame, still learning the game. The personality was quiet. The football was anything but.
“He was a quiet boy, but when he stepped on the pitch, honestly, straight away he was so strong, so fast, so direct.
You could tell from that moment he was going to go on and have a good career. He did well in that FA Cup game [2-1 win against Leicester City] and from then he was already being linked with big clubs. So from that point you knew he was going to go on.”
The memory of that cup tie lingers: an 18-year-old forward bullying defenders, playing as if the stage belonged to him.
“When he was at Newport he was only 18, but he carried himself on the pitch like he was a lot older. You could see it straight away, good with his left foot, good with his right foot, strong. Even at 18, he wasn’t fully developed yet, but you could tell in the next few years he was going to kick on.”
Now Semenyo arrives as a fully-fledged international threat, one of the weapons Ghana will lean on as they head to the World Cup. For Cymru, he is both a warning and a measuring stick.
For Sheehan, he is a reminder of how far careers can travel in a few short years – and how quickly chances at the top level can slip away.
Cymru missed their shot at this World Cup. The task now is brutally simple: make sure the next one, and the Nations League campaign in front of them, do not pass by in the same way.
