Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Abuse has come to a halt for Bale
GARETH Bale says Wales’ march to the semi-finals of Euro 2016 has ended the years of “abuse” he has had to endure from club team-mates.
Real Madrid forward Bale is usually on his summer holidays when major tournaments are held, but not this time with Wales playing Portugal tomorrow for a place in the final of Euro 2016.
And Bale admits he hopes if Wales do get through then it is Germany who are waiting for them in the Paris final on Sunday.
“I remember my Real Madrid team-mate Toni Kroos saying we’d only have three games here,” said Bale.
“So it would be nice to meet him in the final.
“It was a good laugh and a joke, a bit of banter, but I’ve had a lot of abuse over the years.
“When we used to lose and we were 100th in the world, people would say ‘ you have nine weeks holiday instead of two’.
“So it’s great to finally be in a major tournament actually doing great things with our national team.”
Chris Coleman’s team have already gone further in a major tournament than any other Wales side in history.
The 3-1 victory over Belgium eclipsed the achievement of the 1958 side, who reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Sweden.
However, Bale stressed there was always belief in the squad they could cause a huge upset in France this summer.
“We’ve obviously exceeded a lot of people’s expectations, we understand that,” said Bale.
“However, we always believed we could go all the way — you see the fairytale of Greece and Denmark in the past and you think why can’t we do it?
“We grew as a team in qualifying and we’ve just grown more and more throughout the tournament.
“In the England game, we learned from our mistakes of not passing the ball.
“When we’ve had to win ugly we’ve won ugly — and when we’ve had to play football, we’ve played some really good football.”
Some members of the Wales camp have been caught out by their remarkable run to the last four.
Defender Chris Gunter will miss his brother’s wedding in Mexico on Thursday, while midfielder Joe Ledley was due to get married in Ibiza on Saturday. Now Crystal Palace’s former Celtic player has had to postpone his big day and make arrangements to get married later.