Revisiting the day Finland great Jari Litmanen walked Wales ragged – and Craig Bellamy incurred the wrath of a nation.
Live on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Sounds, BBC Sport website and app, plus live textIt 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.
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.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.
"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. 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."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.
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. "I remember it being a difficult game but I remember us playing well, and I think we had decent control," Baxter says.
"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."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.
"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. "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.
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."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.
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.
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