Euro beauties... Cookie’s reflections on the fairytale summer we’ll never forget
IT seems like only yesterday that Chris Coleman’s Wales gave us the greatest summer we have known.
Four years have gone by in a flash, but with Euro 2016 being shown on TV again the memories have come flooding back.
The anthem against Slovakia, the crushing last-gasp defeat by England, the battering of Belgium, Hal Robson-Kanu’s goals, the Cristiano Ronaldo semi-final show that finally brought the epic journey to an end.
Chris Coleman, the man at the centre of everything, has reflected upon that golden four-week period by taking us right inside the Wales dressing room to give us his innermost thoughts.
Here is Coleman’s game-by-game Euro 2016 journey, as told to the FAW’s Facebook channel...
Wales 2 Slovakia 1
WALES endured a major blow just before their first finals match in almost 60 years when goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey went down with a bad back after the team’s plane landed on the wrong runway at Bordeaux and they were stuck on it for ages!
That story has never been revealed before. It could almost only happen to Wales – but they overcame the blow, with Hal Robson-Kanu netting that never to be forgotten winner after an anthem sung as never before.
COLEMAN’S STORY:
“Wayne is 6ft 6in, a big, big man, and that couldn’t have helped him, had to contribute to the problem that he had.
When the medical team came to me and said ‘Look, we don’t think you’re going to have Wayne tomorrow, he’s not going to make it’, I said ‘What? He HAS to make it.’
He woke up next morning in even bigger trouble. If Wayne says he can’t play in a game like that, then he can’t. It was devastating, he’d not missed a match, came through the tough stuff at the start when we were losing, getting criticism, so deserved as much as anybody to be on the pitch.
It was such a shame for Wayne, a consequence of being stuck on that aeroplane. It was completely out of our hands, being on the wrong runway.
Danny Ward came in and was outstanding – his kicking, decisionmaking, presence in the dressing room. Nothing fazed him.
As much as you try to separate it, you’re there representing Wales. You can’t see the concrete for red shirts. I got completely caught up in it. Getting on the bus I was screaming back at our fans, punching my fist, ‘Come on, come on.’
I couldn’t help the emotion involved, it was amazing to see that. You’re away in someone else’s country, look around and just see your own countrymen and women, can see on their faces what it means to be there.
I can’t get words out of my mouth to describe the feeling when the anthem was sung. Half of Wales seemed to be there that day in Bordeaux. You’ve never heard the anthem sung on foreign grounds like that. Amazing, amazing.
Slovakia were a good team, but it didn’t matter who – we were ready to take on anybody at that point.”
England 2 Wales 1
DESPITE taking the lead through Gareth Bale, Wales succumbed to second-half Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge goals.
Coleman had tried to play down the significance of a Wales v England clash in the build-up, but admits he failed and the players got caught up in the sense of occasion.
COLEMAN’S STORY:
“It was a game unlike any other. I tried to get the players to think of it as the second of three opportunities to get enough points to progress to the next round. But as much as we tried to do that, there was nothing we could do.
It’s Wales v England, everybody wants to beat England because of what’s written about them in the media.
We got a little bit caught up in that. We wanted to fight more on the day than play. We can play a lot better, that’s what hurt. If we’d played as we can, that result would have been different.
We never showed that and it might have been my fault as well. They’re the big guns down the road, I wanted us to stand up to that. We wanted to fight and not play. I have to take a little bit of responsibility for that.
Afterwards we went for walk on beach, had an ice cream, went to a local cafe together for a meal. It was done. Russia next, get this one right. That’s what we looked at.”
Russia 0 Wales 3
WOW, what a comeback. Aaron Ramsey, Neil Taylor and Gareth Bale scored the goals as Wales clinched top spot ahead of England.
It is a game that is easily overlooked when you think of iconic Wales performances like beating Belgium, Italy and Germany. But it was the most complete Wales display many of us have seen. Certainly Coleman’s number one.
COLEMAN’S STORY:
“My favourite performance. Everybody thinks it would be Belgium, no no no... Russia for me.
The pressure was on, we had to get it right. Let’s show everybody what we can do, unlike the last game where we showed we can fight and defend, but there’s so much more to us than that.
I told the players ‘so decide here what you want to do before we go out on to the pitch.’
You could see it in their eyes. They were ready. Again, no disrespect to Russia, we could have beaten anybody in that mood.
There was so much riding on it, so to perform with so much freedom and spirit, everybody in synch, was the complete performance for me.
I said afterwards if you were judging us on passion we were a continent tonight. We are a country of three million, not the biggest, but the passion is amazing.
For something special to happen you have to go above the ordinary, do something beyond it. The whole nation reacted to us because of performances.
The players had earned the pats on the back, that wow factor surrounding the team. The Welsh nation was caught up in it, this is what they’d been screaming for over so many years.”
Wales 1 Northern Ireland 0 (last 16)
BY topping their group, Wales had landed a comfortable knockout match on paper. But, as a Battle of Britain showdown, Coleman felt it was always going to be a scrappy affair. So it turned out, a Gareth McAuley own goal near the end from a Gareth Bale cross turning the game Wales’s way.
COLEMAN’S STORY:
“I was uncomfortable. We’d gone from underdogs to favourites, but I knew they were organised, strong, played brilliant counter football, would try to suck us in and hit us on the break.
It was hot and dry in Paris, the ball speed slow on the pitch, their game plan was working. Stop start.
My half-time team talk was important. Don’t worry, keep going, who’ll be the first one to crack. If it’s 0-0 going into the last five minutes stay calm.
If it has to go to extra-time, stay calm. Keep trying to pass the ball, finding space. I knew that was difficult because they had nine or 10 behind the ball. Every time they had a set play they were dangerous.
Then Bale put in the sweetest cross and if their player doesn’t put it in the back of net Hal Robson-Kanu was waiting to do it.
The whole atmosphere was different, our fans a little bit more subdued. They knew if we won we would go to the quarter-finals but that it was a banana skin.
Their game plan worked, ours didn’t, but we got the goal. Suddenly we were sitting four days away from the quarter-finals of a European tournament. A surreal moment.”
Belgium 1 Wales 3 (quarter-final)
WITH Lille close to the Belgian border, this was like a home game for Eden Hazard and his team.
But Welsh fans still travelled in their thousands, and when Sam Vokes scored the third goal, Coleman says he had never seen anything like it. Before that, of course, there was the little matter of Robson-Kanu’s Cruyff turn.
But it was also a little bitter-sweet because Aaron Ramsey and Ben Davies were booked, meaning they’d miss the semi-final. He could see their hurt on the team bus.
COLEMAN’S STORY:
“The Belgian public were very confident to get Wales, but I knew the players wouldn’t think the same. They’d played us four times previously and only beaten us once.
They were number one in the world at the time, but there was no fear from us.
It wasn’t a case of ‘We’ve come this far, it doesn’t matter what happens, pats on the back’. More ‘We’ve come this far, let’s do it again... because we can’. Our midfield ran the game. Belgium had no answers. We were keeping possession. They were shouting at one another, their bench ‘What’s going on?’ They couldn’t figure out our movement in the midfield, the rotation with Bale, Ramsey, Allen and Ledley.
By the time they had we were 3-1 up, the game was done.
Hal’s goal was incredible, the courage and technical ability to do that. As for Vokes’ header, it was John Charles-like. Boom, the ball was past Courtois before he moved.
I can see the Welsh fans behind that goal – you’ve never seen fans react to anything like that before. They charged down, it was an incredible moment.
Travelling back on the bus I was watching Rambo and Ben celebrating with everybody else.
But I also remember looking at them at one stage, they were thinking ‘Oh, we’re going to miss the semi-final’.
I felt sorry for them, they’d earned it as much as anybody.
It was a bitter one for us.”
Portugal 2 Wales 0 (semi-final)
CRISTIANO Ronaldo finally ended the dream with a towering header, which Coleman warned his players about but concedes they could do nothing to stop.
The dream was over and Coleman admits he was in tears.
Then came more emotion with that open-top bus parade through the streets of Cardiff.
COLEMAN’S STORY:
“The one particular thing Ronaldo can do is