England match can reinvigorate Welsh football

Wales coach Gary Speed hopes an upset against cross-border rival England on Saturday in his first competitive match in charge can revive the passion for football in the rugby-crazy nation.

The game will be played at the sold-out Millennium Stadium, which will host a Wales game for the first time since September 2009 when fewer than 14,000 turned out to see Russia. The team's home matches have been played in smaller grounds across Wales since.

It has taken the return of England for a 2012 European Championship qualifier to sell out the national stadium for the first time since the sides met in 2005 in a World Cup qualifier.

''If we get a positive result from this game, which we are very hopeful of, then hopefully we can re-ignite the spark that was in Wales,'' Speed said Friday. ''If we are going to be successful, we need those fans to be with us and filling the Millennium Stadium for every home game.''

Speed, who was hired as coach in December, played 85 times for Wales.

''There has been times when we have played at the Millennium when there have not been very many fans there and it is disheartening,'' Speed said. ''The aim is to be playing at the Millennium in front of a full house very game. This game can go along to ensuring that.

''When I played in front of 74,000 against Azerbaijan (in 2008) it was because we were doing well and flying. With all due respect it was not because of Azerbaijan. If we get to that scenario again, it means that we are doing well.''

Wales hasn't qualified for a major tournament since the 1958 World Cup and is bottom of Group G in Euro 2012 qualifying after losing the opening three matches before Speed was brought in.

Speed is already looking ahead to ensuring the team succeeds in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. His team will need to cope against a strong England side without one of Europe's most dangerous and talked about players, Wales winger Gareth Bale, who has been ruled out of Saturday's match with hamstring troubles.

''We are playing for the future and in the way that we want to be playing in the World Cup in 2014,'' Speed said. ''So just because there are a couple of players missing we won't change the way that we play, the structure will stay the same ... if we are going to be successful in the future, we are going to have to cope with missing players. We are going to have to get results without the likes of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey.

''I think in the past it has cost us when we missed good players but we have to get to the scenario where it doesn't affect us.''

Ramsey, who was appointed captain by Speed despite being just 20, believes the 41-year-old coach will help the Welsh finally join England at tournaments.

''We want to qualify for things,'' the Arsenal midfielder said. ''There have been some changes and hopefully now this will give us the extra bit now to give us more consistency.''

First Ramsey will hope to lead the Welsh to their first victory over England since 1984.