John Toshack given vote of confidence

In a very wise move, the Football Association of Wales has extended the John Toshack's contract through the 2012 European Championship effort. There was considerable talk of the fifty-nine year-old manager returning to club level with a variety of clubs in Spain and Portugal reputedly sending out backroom feelers.

FAW secretary David Collins said to the BBC of the extension:

"John has done a terrific job in bringing the youngsters forward to a point that we now can compete at the highest level."

"The team is going through a very, very steep curve as far as the potential of the youngsters is concerned," said Collins.

"We now look forward to the latter part of the present campaign for the World Cup in 2010 and certainly look forward to the Euro 2012 with great hope that we can at last qualify for a major finals.

"You can take it that the fact that the FAW have extended John's contract, they are 100 per cent sure he can get us there."

"You can see from the work that he's done with the young players coming through, we are now turning out to be a tremendously useful side and I don't think that would have been the case without John.

"We are delighted with the progress Wales are making under John and (U-21 coach) Brian Flynn and long may it last."

Wales returns to play next week in a friendly against Poland.