The unusual unity inspiring Wales' Euro 2016 challenge

Aaron Ramsey turned up to Wales’ pre-Euros training camp in Cardiff last week with a new hairstyle. His closely cropped Peaky Blinders lines were but the start of the look’s eye-catching qualities. More immediately noticeable (indeed it was so apparent he might as well have walked in with a neon sign on his head reading ‘Look At Me’) was the fact his hair was now the same colour as the contents of a pot of Tesco Greek-style set yoghurt.

Though Ramsey denied it, the suspicion among those attending Wales’s pre-departure media day, was that the Arsenal player had been the victim of a prank. Recalling the huge unifying effect of Romania’s 1998 World Cup team, who went into the tournament in France with their hair uniformly peroxide, the thought was that someone had suggested the Welsh did the same. Like the others, Ramsey signed up to the idea: all for one and one for all. Except it was a deliberate set-up. None of the rest had any intention of turning yellow. He was left alone in the barbers.

It is precisely what might have happened in a squad as engaged, together and cohesive as Chris Coleman’s, a squad in which mickey-taking is a principal bonding mechanism, a squad where everyone is the same, and nobody is too big to be the fall guy.

Indeed, what is striking about the Welsh is not that Ramsey lords it, thinking of himself as somehow detached, a Premier League stalwart among Championship also-rans. It is that they come across as all in it together.

Which is some quality given that they have in their number the world’s most expensive player and the man who has driven them to France with his goals in qualification. But this is not a case of Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and 21 others. Unlike with other smaller nations’ squads which boast a world class superstar – mentioning no names, Sweden and Portugal – Bale goes out of his way to assimilate into the squad, to be just one of the lads. Humble, unostentatious, determined, his character perfectly melds into the team. And Ramsey is the same, no swanning about thinking he’s better than the rest, he mucks in. Even in the barbers.

Such cohesiveness has led former players like Neville Southall and Dean Saunders to suggest this is not just the best ever Wales squad, but the one with the finest spirit. Better than the 2002 team which beat Germany with Ryan Giggs, John Hartson and Robbie Earnshaw. Better even than the legendary side featuring Southall, Saunders, Mark Hughes and Ian Rush that defeated the Germans in 1991.

“There’s a reason this lot are in France and we never qualified for anything,” Southall suggested this week. “You can go on about luck all you want, but the truth is we weren’t good enough. This lot have shown by qualifying that they are. End of story.”

Indeed, he believes this is a squad who, as they set up their camp in Dinard, are convinced that they are not simply making up the numbers in the tournament but that they can progress. All of the noises coming out of the squad insist he is right: these Wales players are not satisfied merely to be the first representatives of their country to play in a major tournament in 58 years. They want to move through the group stage and take their chances in the knock-out.

And despite a sobering warm-up defeat to Sweden, when their previously tungsten defence suddenly gave intimations of springing a leak, Chris Coleman, their enterprising manager, agrees with Southall that qualification is but the start. What gives Coleman cause for optimism (beyond the fact that, thanks to the new enlarged format, it is possible to advance out of the group with as few as two points) is the nature of his players.

He has strength everywhere. His defence is marshalled by the grizzled Ashley Williams, a man who gives every impression of preferring to bite off one of his own limbs than concede a goal. Around him in a back three are two equally uncompromising defenders in James Collins and James Chester. In midfield, in addition to Ramsey, he has Joe Allen, hugely revived under the management of Jurgen Klopp, and Joe Ledley.

But it is hard to look beyond Bale for the real source of excitement. Strong, quick, good in the air, two-footed: the Real Madrid man, twice a Champions League winner, is simply without a flaw. And the thing that makes him an even more compelling asset for Coleman is the manner in which he gives absolutely everything for the Welsh cause. Anyone who repeats the oft used complaint that modern footballers don’t care for the shirt should be directed to Bale. This is someone whose passion is unequivocal.

A former class mate of the current Welsh rugby captain Sam Warburton (that must have been some secondary school in Cardiff) he long envied the patriotic drive behind Wales’s frequent engagements at the top level of international egg chasing. Now, unlike his illustrious predecessors Rush, Giggs, Southall and Hughes, he has the opportunity to savour that sort of passion on a footballing stage. He is not about to let the opportunity go lightly.

With Bale driving the Welsh, a bet on them progressing out of the group stage looks more like shrewd financial planning than a wild punt. Though it is probably not worth backing the idea that the whole lot of them will be sporting an Aaron Ramsey come kick-off against Slovakia on Saturday.