Wales manager Chris Coleman will recall a painful memory in Tbilisi this evening.
He was in the Welsh team thrashed 5-0 by hosts Georgia in 1994 when he was in Mike Smith’s team, but he’s planning for a far better outcome in Friday’s World Cup qualifier.
Gareth Bale is missing because of a calf strain, but he is staying with the squad for matches against Georgia away and Republic of Ireland at Cardiff City Stadium on Monday.
Coleman has trust in his team, a trust that they can get the job done without their talisman.
Wales need two wins to keep hopes of qualifying for the World Cup finals next year alive and Coleman says: “We haven’t always had our key players in this campaign. That’s international football.
“We have got to get on with that. I’m not complaining. We have to get over that as a team. We went to Serbia without Gareth, we’ve had to play games without Rambo (Aaron Ramsey), these big star players for us.
“Certainly those top three – Joe Allen, Ramsey and Bale – have missed a lot of games. But you have to win games and perform without your big players.
“I think the word is trust. It comes down to trust and I completely trust the players.
“If they are not performing and I understand why they are not performing, I think I have their trust that I will not tell them something that is not true, I’d rather just give them the truth whether they like it or not.
“And they accept it, that’s what it is about, trust. It is not a word in my industry that gets bandied about too often.
“I do have complete faith in them – and trust – and I hope they’ve got that in me. But I think I’ve had to earn it off them after what happened in the first campaign. That was for me to go and earn that trust, first and foremost.”
Wins against Austria and Moldova have given Coleman’s men a fighting chance of qualifying.
“It is on a knife edge and we have all been there before, the players have,” says Coleman.
“How long has it been? Take away the last tournament (Euro 2016). How long since we were at this stage with something to play for with two games to go? Maybe under Mark Hughes? It’s been far too long.
“We are in with a great shout and the pressure and spotlight is welcomed by me, I promise you.
“Any manager will tell you that you try to stay away from all that. I welcome it. It’s great, because I’m always used to ‘there’s nothing on it’.
“We get a couple of good results at the end of the campaign and everybody gets excited, and the next campaign ‘wallop’, after three games we’re out of it.
“That’s not the case now. It’s the second campaign, we’ve kept the ball rolling and we’re in with a shout. The next game it’s all or nothing and that’s what we’ve always wanted.
“At this stage of the campaign we’ve been used to playing in front of 10,000 with nothing on the game. Not now. There’s everything on it and it’s where we want to be.”
Tonight’s match is at the Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena, Tblisi (5pm) and Wales haven’t won a competitive match away without Bale for eight years, since beating Azerbaijan in 2009.
On a positive note, they face a Georgia side have failed to win a single game in this campaign so far. They have, though, proved a tough nut to crack in this group, picking up five draws.
Wales, possible: Hennessey; Gunter, Chester, Williams (capt), Davies; Ledley, Allen, King; Ramsey, Lawrence; Vokes.
