Bellamy has always watched and analysed football obsessively – from the World Cups he followed as a boy to the endless hours of opposition footage that he consumes as a coach.
During his playing career, his burning desire to be the best often spilled into raging fires. And as others have said, while his intensity remains, he has learned to control it.
That change is a gradual process, one which Bellamy himself says is still ongoing, and his first foray into coaching at Cardiff’s academy was a lesson.
The club investigated a bullying claim made against the former striker and he subsequently stepped down from his role as their under-18s coach.
Bellamy denied and disputed the allegations and was not the subject of any disciplinary proceedings, but did issue a statement at the time saying he was “truly sorry” if he had offended anyone.
“Football has changed a lot, how you man-manage players. There is that question people will have – is he capable of it when you saw the mistakes he made as a player,” says Gabbidon.
“But you live and learn and I think he’s understood that if he wants to go down this road, then you have to change and adapt.
“That period for him was definitely a learning, and the people he’s worked with since – like Vincent Kompany, who is a very calm person – you can see he’s learned from that too.”
Bellamy was a part of Kompany’s coaching set-up at Anderlecht and Burnley, and he credits his former Manchester City team-mate as a major influence, for his cool temperament as much as his footballing acumen.
That development in Bellamy was clear when he was interviewed for the Wales job.
At Burnley’s training ground, he impressed the Football Association of Wales’ chief football officer Dave Adams and chief executive Noel Mooney with a comprehensive presentation on the national team, from tactical analysis to granular assessments of individual player data.
“You’ve got to try and keep him very busy, Craig,” says Adams.
“He wants to be constantly involved in things, which is brilliant because in between camps, in under-15s and 16s camps you have a lot of meetings around the tactical principles and supporting the coaches in the pathway.
“Craig has to have a sense of purpose every day, which he’s really found in this job. We’ve based him in an office in Dragon Park, so he’s got his own space to watch games – and he watches a lot of games – and analyse the opposition in a very meticulous way.
“So although you might have a lot of time in international football, when you prepare in that way and you go and watch players, you visit clubs, you spend a lot of time with pathway teams, the role can be as big as you want it to be.”
Unlike some of his peers in international football, Bellamy treats the Wales job like a full-time occupation.
Players love working with him – whether that be on the training field or in meeting rooms. Harry Wilson has gone as far to say: “He’s changed the way I see football.”
Even Bellamy’s media interviews can turn into tactical seminars, and it seems like his conversations with former team-mates often go that way too.
“If you get on the phone with him, or you speak to him, they could last hours just over the smallest detail,” says Williams.
“He could talk to you for hours about goal kicks and you’re not bored because the passion of how much he loves football and all the different intricacies comes through.”
