David Raya had a loan spell at Southport before winning the Premier League with Arsenal, while Jordan Pickford spent time with Darlington and Alfreton Town on his way to a European Championship final and two World Cup semi-finals with England.

A non-league apprenticeship, it seems, can help a goalkeeper reach great heights.

That appeared to form part of Craig Bellamy's thinking when he announced his Wales squad for this month's Nations League matches against Norway and Portugal.

The one new name was Joe Duncan, a 20-year-old goalkeeper on loan at National League side Southend United from Bristol City.

Born in Bristol, Duncan was involved with Jamaica's youth set-up prior to committing to Wales, earning two under-21 caps before his surprise first call-up to the senior squad on Wednesday.

His ascension to the higher echelons of the game has come sooner than expected, but he won't be thrown in for a debut in Oslo next weekend against Erling Haaland and company.

Instead, given Wales' dearth of goalkeeping options, Bellamy wants to take a closer look at some prospects for the future.

"You have to start somewhere as a goalkeeper, you have to learn your trade," the Wales head coach says.

"I love goalkeepers playing lower leagues, especially development goalkeepers, the ones who are looking to push through, because they [non-league players] are going to bump you and ask questions of you.

"Maybe you get over-protected the higher you go but, in those leagues, I think we quite enjoy watching those games because you're not getting anything. It's perfect, the way I see it, for a young goalkeeper.

"He's not someone who's always been on our radar because he hasn't been available to us. I have to be honest, everything I've seen with him at Southend, I really like."

It helps that Southend's manager is one of Bellamy's best friends from his playing days, former Newcastle and West Ham team-mate Kieron Dyer.

"Kieron loves [Duncan] and I respect his view on football," Bellamy says. "His IQ on the game is one of the best I've been involved with."

Bellamy has been to watch Duncan play for Southend but kept a low profile, so as not to distract the young keeper.

"That was the same week [England manager Thomas] Tuchel was watching PSG in the Champions League, so the world's different, but enjoyable," the ex-Wales captain grins.

Bellamy rummages further down the leagues than most of his international coaching peers because, quite simply, he has to. There's not much out there in terms of Welsh goalkeepers.

During his squad announcement on Wednesday, the former Liverpool and Manchester City forward described his current first-team regulars Karl Darlow, 36, and Danny Ward, 33, as "old".

It was a playful description, but his point was a serious one - where is Wales' next generation of keepers?

Everton reserve Tom King and Sheffield United's Adam Davies have usually been third choice behind Darlow and Ward but neither is playing for their club and, at 31 and 34 years old respectively, they are approaching the latter stages of their careers.

That means Bellamy has had to widen his search for successors. As he wryly notes himself, it is a far cry from Tuchel's situation with England, pondering whether to stick with Pickford or give another opportunity to Leeds United's James Trafford, who at 24 years old has already cost clubs nearly £100m in transfer fees.

Burnley paid a portion of that sum when Bellamy was working at Turf Moor as Vincent Kompany's assistant boss.

"You've got to earn your stripes. I've seen it with Traffs, who had really good loans with Bolton before he came to us," he says.

"We paid a lot of money for him but if we didn't do it then we were going to miss him."

Bellamy cannot delve into the transfer market to bolster Wales' goalkeeping ranks, which he describes as "an area where we're lacking at the moment".

What he can do is look far and wide – and sometimes in unexpected places – in his search for a future number one.

As Raya, Pickford, Trafford and others have shown, there is no shortage of examples to follow as Duncan plots his route to the top.