FROM PAGE 11
“We’ve just got to be there. It’s win-win either way. It’ll either be the greatest victory we’ve known watching Wales... or a celebration of the great Euros even if we lose,” he explains.
They set off from Cardiff at 7am, place on the Folkestone Eurostar booked for lunchtime, but there is trouble ahead.
As they arrive in Kent, news reaches travelling Welsh fans that a train has broken down in the Eurotunnel overnight and there are severe delays heading across into France.
“We arrived at Folkestone with plenty of time to spare, parked up in a queue... and ended waiting and waiting,” says Morgan. “At first it was OK, but as the hours passed by and we were still stuck we began to get really worried.
“Welsh fans were everywhere, in great spirits to start with, tooting horns. But gradually people began to panic, it got quite fractious. We feared we would not get there on time. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, we got the go-ahead to move... we were on our way at last.”
There are more than 100,000 Belgian fans in Lille.
Their Wales counterparts number around 20,000, the vast majority them ticketless, but they are just as loud and proud. THE ANTHEM BACK home, the game is being beamed into millions of homes across the UK by the BBC. England, Scotland and Irish fans had become Welsh for one evening.
A nation is uniting in more ways than one.
There are 10 Belgians to every Welsh fan inside the ground. But as the teams line up for the national anthem, commentator Steve Wilson utters his words: “Wales may be outnumbered... they won’t be outsung.”
Players, management and the Red Wall belt out the words perhaps as never before, prompting Wilson to observe: “That may just have been the best rendition yet.”
How could anyone not be stirred by what we have just heard?
Wilson himself reflects: “I had covered every Wales game up to that point, but this just felt different. More like a Belgium home game, the quality of the opposition better than anything Wales had faced too.
“As a commentator, you do think about what to say at the start, try to get the right words to go with the pictures and sum up the emotions.
“I’m English, but I had seen for myself the sense of fans and team coming together as one for the anthem at the Russia game. I just kind of knew we were about to have another special moment.
“I may not be Welsh, but I was brought up on the Wirral, so that’s quite close! It’s such a special anthem and that was always going to be magical, which I tried to reflect with my words.
“Besides, I’d been co-commentating throughout France with Robbie Savage... and his enthusiasm had rubbed off on me by this point.
“I’ve done Champions League finals, commentated on Germany 7 Brazil 1, but I’m pretty sure, when I’m finally wheeled out by the BBC, that Wales beating Belgium is going to be right up there as one of the greatest matches I’ve done.” THE TERRIBLE START WALES begin badly and just 11 minutes are gone when they fall behind to a Radja Nainggolan wonder strike.
Joe Allen gives the ball away near the Belgian penalty box – a rare error from him in these Euros – and the drills Coleman has been working on in training are put into practice as Wales cover the gaps to stop Belgium racing clear on the counter.
In fact, Wales fall in so well they have eight players against two Belgians, meaning the opposition can’t open them up and have to start passing the ball around slowly.
But Allen, Joe Ledley and Aaron Ramsey are almost too efficient. Because they hare back to cover so well, the defence behind them are sitting too deep, giving Nainggolan the space from 25 yards out to fire an effort past Wayne Hennessey.
“It is the best thing that could have happened to us,” reflects Roberts. “After that, and remembering what happened against England, the players got on the ball, were bolder in possession, determined not to let this opportunity slip by.
“In years gone by, as we saw once in Serbia, we might have seen heads drop and conceded six. Not any more. “Nothing fazes these players. “We end up with 57 per cent firsthalf possession.
“Dominating the ball - which takes some doing against a team as talented as Belgium - and were 1-1.
“In the second half we only had 37% possession and it was 2-0 to us.
That’s what Chris means by the players ‘Feeling comfortable being uncomfortable’.”