Euro 2024 play-offs: The day Finland legend Jari Litmanen walked Wales ragged

A Wales team featuring the likes of Gareth Bale struggled to fill the Millennium Stadium during the late 2000s

The day Jari Litmanen walked Wales ragged.

It is a turn of phrase which has taken on a life of its own, repeated and adapted to the point where its authorship is unknown.

But it calls to mind a precise moment in time for Welsh football, a moment captain Craig Bellamy summarised with typical brutality: "Where we go from here, God knows."

This was 2009, one of Wales' many periods in the international wilderness; the era of John Toshack's callow young teams getting routinely outplayed at a half-empty Millennium Stadium.

As David Edwards, part of the Wales midfield in those days says, it was "a million miles away" from the golden age of recent years.

On Thursday, Wales will aim to take the next step towards qualifying for another major tournament - their fourth out of five - when they host Finland in a Euro 2024 play-off semi-final.

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With a sell-out crowd at Cardiff City Stadium and the prospect of playing at a third successive European Championship, the current picture could scarcely be in starker contrast to the bleak backdrop when Wales faced Finland in 2009.

Back then, Wales were tumbling down the world rankings - soon to be outside the top 100 - and, just four games into their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign, their chances of securing a place in the competition for the first time since 1958 were already fading.

Toshack had been in charge for five years and, following a spate of retirements, he decided the only way forward was to put his faith in youth and hope early exposure to international football would arm his players with the experience required to flourish later in their careers.

Toshack handed debuts to the likes of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey during his tenure but, while these stars of the future were taking their first steps at this level, the results were dire.

"It was a difficult time but, looking back, it was a pain we needed to go through to try and develop what has happened in the last decade of Welsh football," Edwards tells BBC Sport Wales.

"We were really struggling for confidence, struggling to put performances together on the pitch and never giving ourselves a chance of being in any sort of qualifying campaign past the midway stage."

With hopes of qualifying already effectively over once again, the optimistic view was that a home match against Finland at least offered Wales the opportunity to earn a much-needed win against opponents of similar stature.

The Finns had some notable names of their own - Liverpool defender Sami Hyypia and ex-Chelsea striker Mikael Forssell among them - but their most iconic player, the great Litmanen, was entering the twilight years of his illustrious career.

If Wales thought the 38-year-old former Ajax and Barcelona playmaker was simply going through the motions as he eased himself towards retirement, they were mistaken.

"Litmanen was nearly 40 and absolutely ran the show," Edwards says.

"Technically, he was exceptional. I remember going into the game, 23 years old and thinking, 'Well, I can run all over him' but it's hard to run all over someone when they've moved the ball away from you with their first touch because they know you're coming."

Jari Litmanen, formerly of Liverpool, is Finland's most capped player of all time with 137 appearances

There was an ethereal quality to Litmanen that day, drifting from view before popping up in pockets of space between Wales' midfield and defence.

While others rushed and barrelled around him, Litmanen strolled through the game at a walking pace; seldom still but rarely breaking into a jog, carefully picking his moments to exert himself.

One such moment came towards the end of the first half when Litmanen picked up possession inside his own half, drew three Wales players towards him and received a return pass in space - space that was not there just a moment earlier.

With a nonchalant flick of the outside of his boot, he then played a perfect through ball for Jonatan Johansson to roll in the game's opening goal.

"Jari was excellent," Finland's manager at the time, Stuart Baxter, tells BBC Sport Wales.

"I couldn't wish for a more serious professional, and I do not mean boring by serious. He was a great personality as well as being a professional of great quality."

Litmanen orchestrated proceedings with such elegant control that he could have played the entire 90 minutes in a three-piece suit without breaking a sweat.

Wales could not contain him and, although Litmanen's team-mates squandered several chances he had created, Finland wrapped up victory with Shefki Kuqi's late goal.

"I remember it being a difficult game but I remember us playing well, and I think we had decent control," Baxter says.

"It was a good Finnish performance but it was one we had to battle for because Wales were on their own turf, and they were not going to lie down easily."

'Two poor sides' - Bellamy lets rip

Craig Bellamy (left) scored 19 goals in 78 games for Wales but never played at a major tournament

Wales' captain, Bellamy, did not see it that way.

"They're not a good side," the then-Manchester City forward said of Finland in his post-match interview with Sky Sports.

"I suppose you've just seen two poor sides trying to contest this group. None of us have a glimmer of hope of qualifying. That's a fact after what I've seen today. Where we go from here, God knows. Same old story, out of a group.

"Johansson scored, I don't know how. I don't think he's a good enough player to score, but we were just poor."

Unsurprisingly, Johansson did not take kindly to Bellamy's views.

"We laughed about his comments on the team bus - after all, we did win 2-0," said the 106-cap Finland striker, who spent six years in the Premier League with Charlton.

"But comments from a captain of his country shows he has no class or integrity."

The rest of Wales' players only heard about Bellamy's interview once they had got back to their hotel.

"It wasn't always easy being on a team with 'Bellers' because of his standards but, looking back, it was because he was such a good player himself and he wanted us to achieve," Edwards says.

"'Bellers' definitely didn't accept being beaten by anyone, and that was a good trait to have.

"I think, looking back as a younger lad, you feel almost like you'd let him down because you knew what a good player he was in the Premier League.

"You knew he was a superstar and you almost felt like 'I'm not good enough to play with him' to a degree, because he wanted standards to be up there, and we weren't good enough. I wasn't good enough to be up with that standard."

During the return fixture in Helsinki a little over six months later, Bellamy was booed by the home supporters throughout the game.

"Craig had a little pop at me, which was quite funny," Baxter recalls. "There was a little bit of edge there, but not a lot.

"I think people who know Craig know that he's a competitor and he doesn't take losing very easily, he gets very edgy and that's just something that you put down as being par for the course.

"For us coming into the return game, certainly the lads spoke about it. But Sami [Hyypia, Bellamy's former Liverpool team-mate] said to me 'look, he'll have forgotten this now, so just get on with it'.

"It did add something for some of the other lads, not that they needed an extra edge."

Finland won that game as well, 2-1, although Bellamy did score and enjoyed making a 'shush' gesture to the crowd.

"When I look back at his time with Wales, 'Bellers' was the ultimate professional, raising standards everywhere," says Edwards.

"That's a learning curve that you have to go through as a young professional and I'm so glad I was one of the players who got to do it because it's character building.

"It's another point which made us stronger, made us better and got us to where we were later. It was just a shame that Craig wasn't part of that group. He played a massive part in getting us there."

Bellamy retired from international football in 2013, joining the likes of Ian Rush, Neville Southall and Ryan Giggs as Welsh football greats who never graced a major tournament.

Edwards, meanwhile, was among 10 players in Wales' matchday squad in Helsinki - and one of nine from the defeat in Cardiff - who would make it to Euro 2016.

Bale, Ramsey and Gunter were still teenagers when Wales lost to Finland at the Millennium Stadium. At that point, the idea of reaching a European Championship semi-final could hardly have seemed more fanciful.

"As a group of younger lads, we wouldn't see the bigger picture," Edwards says.

"Although John Toshack was unable to get it right on the pitch, his experience from what he'd been through in football, he knew this was the right thing to do, along with Brian Flynn. They saw the bigger picture, which obviously we're so grateful for now.

"We got to play in major tournaments and play in front of full houses at Cardiff City Stadium. That seemed a million miles away back in 2009.

"So I'm glad they saw it but, us as players, we probably didn't. It was just the here and now as a young footballer.

"That's why, when I look back on Euro 2016, I was 30 at the time, I'm so glad that experience came later in my career. I realised I needed to really take it all in, enjoy and remember it."

Wales will be hoping to add to those happy memories in Cardiff on Thursday. Beat Finland and they will host Poland or Estonia five days later, with the winner qualifying for this summer's European Championship in Germany.

"Finland will go there thinking they will do well to win, which I don't think is good news for Wales," says Baxter, whose former assistant coach, Markku Kanerva, now manages the Finns.

"I think Wales would prefer it if Finland came into the game fancying their chances. I wouldn't bet against Wales in Cardiff given their recent home record but Finland are in a good place at the moment."

Edwards is confident about Wales' chances, not least because Litmanen is long retired.

Having been absent from major tournaments for 58 years before Euro 2016, Wales are now aiming to qualify for their third European Championship in succession.

"Wales at home, you always fancy them," Edwards says. "There are not many times we've gone into a big game in Cardiff and not delivered.

"It was difficult to play at the Millennium Stadium. As much as it was everyone's dream to play there, it was a difficult atmosphere to play in because it was never full, and probably deservedly so because the football wasn't as good as what it needed to be.

"Now you look at the difference with how good we are at home at Cardiff City Stadium because of the Red Wall behind us. I think that's a massive advantage when we play teams like Finland in the play-offs.

"Finland are doing well themselves but I just think Wales at Cardiff City Stadium is a different animal. I'd fully back us to get the result."