Make our big date with Portugal a national holiday, say Wales players
Thousands of fans making trip to Lyon for semi-final Jonny Williams likely to replace banned Ramsey
Wales players have suggested that Wednesday’s European Championship semi-final against Portugal could be declared a national holiday, after bringing the country to a virtual standstill during Friday’s historic 3-1 victory against Belgium.
Prime Minister David Cameron was among those to immediately offer their congratulations to Chris Coleman’s players, whose achievement in reaching the last four and setting up a match against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal has confirmed their status as Wales’s greatest football team.
Despite serious delays on the Eurotunnel, an estimated 20,000 Wales fans were in Lille for Friday’s match, while fan-zones in Cardiff, Newport, Pontypridd and Anglesey were sold out. Tickets for Wednesday’s semi-final in Lyon are selling for upwards of £1,000 and, on top of the 100,000 Wales fans estimated to have journeyed to France at different stages of the tournament so far, another 25,000 are expected this week.
Chris Gunter, the Wales right wingback, now faces missing the wedding of his brother, Marc, in Cancún, Mexico, on Thursday, for which he is the best man. Their parents have also been following Wales in France and he has said that he may give his speech via Skype.
“I am getting pictures through from back home and you feel like they could be having a Bank Holiday for this,” said left wing-back Neil Taylor. “I think there might be an awful lot of people taken sick that day. It is unbelievable; until we get home we probably will not realise what we have done here.”
Chris Coleman, the Wales manager, has told supporters that they should “dream” and “get carried away” but is adamant that his players will concentrate solely on implementing their game plan during the first 45 minutes of Wednesday’s match. “Three million people back home are going crazy; they deserve that,” he said.
A major blow for Wales, however, is the suspension for the semi-finals of two of their most influential players in Aaron Ramsey and Ben Davies. Ramsey has scored one, created four and covered most distance in the tournament, while Davies has been a huge presence on the left of Coleman’s three-man central defence.
Jonny Williams’s energy means that he is most likely to replace Ramsey in the dual No 10 position alongside Gareth Bale, although Coleman also has the option of strengthening the central midfield by adding Andy King or David Edwards. West Ham’s James Collins is the obvious replacement for Davies in central defence, and Ramsey is confident that Wales can still deliver a place in the final.
Ramsey said: “I am really gutted, but I am confident in the players we have.” Asked if his performance against Belgium had been the best of his career, he added: “I think so. Especially at the stage we are at – a quarter-final in a major tournament – you have to stand up and be counted.”
James Chester believes Wales will be losing their most in-form defender. “Ben has been our stand-out defender in the tournament; Aaron has undoubted ability, but how much work he puts in maybe gets overlooked,” he said.
Taylor felt that the bookings, which were only Wales’s second in five matches, were harsh. “When we had a talk before the tournament, we heard yellow cards were wiped out for the quarters,” he said. “It is so difficult not to pick up yellow cards when you play that many games and you have a referee like that. In a game moving at that pace he could have been far more lenient. In the Portugal v Poland game the ref was far more lenient to players knowing they could be suspended.
“They must be heartbroken. We have said to them that we are going to do everything we can to get them to the final. We have people who can step in, but they have both been massive players. We are doing it for those two and for everyone.”
The semi-final, inevitably, will be billed as a showdown between Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo – the two most expensive footballers in history – but Bale has always been adamant that he cares only about the collective result. “It’s Portugal versus Wales, nothing more,” he said. “We’ve already made history. This is our time to shine.”
Hal Robson-Kanu, however, reiterated his belief that Bale is now the best in the world. Asked if he would prefer to be facing Ronaldo rather than Lionel Messi, he said: “They are both worldclass players but we have a world-class player who is better.”
Chester added: “People tend to get lazy and label us as a one-man team. We are far from that.”
And what was said in the player huddle after the game? “‘Enjoy the night’ because I’m not sure how often nights like this happen,” said Chester. “Then we sang the fans’ We don’t want to go
home, which was good fun.”