Speed eager for Wales to seize golden opportunity

It is perhaps not the best time to quote Neville Chamberlain, but if any nation merited his description of Czechoslovakia – "a small faraway nation of which we know little" – it would be Azerbaijan. It has no proper national league of its own, no players you have ever heard of and is very difficult to place on a map. Yet some 72,000 will throng Cardiff's Millennium Stadium to watch them play today. If Mark Hughes wanted proof of his boast that football might replace rugby as the Welsh national game, this could be the day when a country turned its back on the oval ball.

As Gary Speed knows, small faraway nations have inflicted too much pain on Welsh football over the years for him ever to feel entirely comfortable. Speed made his international debut in May 1990 at Ninian Park, Cardiff, against Costa Rica, an occasion made more poignant by the fact that Costa Rica had qualified for the upcoming World Cup and Wales had not.

Speed was part of a side that lost 2-1 in Cyprus. He played in a 3-2 defeat to Moldova and a 5-0 thrashing by Georgia which followed it. Don't ask him to take Azerbaijan lightly – even when Wales lead their European Championship qualifying group by a streak.

"Yes, I have been looking at the table," he said. "Italy have played three and got four points but they are the kind of team who can win every game and get 19 points and, if we settle for 18, it's not going to be good enough. We can't relax; we have to keep going."

This is probably the high-water mark of Speed's career. He is 33, captain of Wales at a time when they appear overwhelming favourites to qualify for their first major championship since the sainted side of 1958 and at the heart of a Newcastle midfield that might still drive its way to the title.

"You do look back at the days when there were two or three thousand at Ninian or the Racecourse Ground," he said. "But if you call it pressure, bring it on. We've been to Inter Milan and Barcelona. As a footballer it's what you want and I'll take it. There have been times in my career where that has been a million miles away."

And what was it like going from a Leeds side who were then champions of England to a Welsh team that could lose to Cyprus? "It was that long ago I can't remember," he said. "You are playing for your country and the importance doesn't diminish because there are no people there. It's not very nice but you don't try any less. Having been through the dark days it makes you want it more, makes you realise we must not let it slip through our fingers."

Last weekend Speed drove down to Cardiff with Craig Bellamy, fresh from the dressing room at St James' Park which had celebrated a 5-1 demolition of Blackburn Rovers. On Monday morning Bellamy was back on Tyneside after a five-hour drive from the team headquarters at the Vale of Glamorgan Country Club after allegedly racially abusing a customer in a nightclub near the Millennium Stadium. Speed is not close to Bellamy – only Kieron Dyer fulfills that role at Newcastle – and they could almost be from different footballing generations.

Asked if he could act as a mentor to the troubled striker, Speed burst out laughing and said he doubted he would be asked. Yet yesterday, he mounted a fierce defence of his team-mate.

"He's probably one of the best professionals I have worked with. To have had so many injuries at such a young age and to get better as time's gone on, it's a credit to him. It's the hard work that he's done behind the scenes that got him where he is. The place he is most comfortable is on the football pitch.

"Craig motivates himself by getting stuck into people; he gets booed by the crowd and it makes him play even better. I'll give him advice but whether he listens to it or not I don't know. We are under the spotlight more now because of our results but crowds do not boo bad players. It's the same with Robbie Savage – they are back-handed compliments."

Speed is more naturally a Mark Hughes man than Bellamy, pointing to the Wales manager's great attention to detail; a factor presumably learned at the feet of Sir Alex Ferguson. As well as insisting that the Under-21s have the same facilities as the senior team, Hughes moved Speed to a left-back position, from the left side of midfield he usually occupies for Newcastle.

It may have extended his international career "but not if you come up against a tricky winger", he smiles, adding that this might not be his last hurrah as everyone assumes. "I am fitter now than I have ever been and I haven't counted out another campaign as long as I keep fresh. I know Mark would drop me in a flash if I wasn't good enough. There would be no sentiment."