Wales’ victory over Belgium is everything we love about soccer
Wales’ absolutely thrilling 3-1 victory over Belgium on Friday night at the Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille had everything. It had Hal Robson-Kanu, a winger recently released by lowly English championship club Reading, scoring a game-winning goal fit for the greats – imagined with astonishing chutzpah and executed with imperious skill. Before that, it had Ashley Williams – who couldn’t move his left arm after a collision just six days ago in the Round of 16 game against Northern Ireland – hauling his side level with a headed goal from an Aaron Ramsey corner. It had substitute Sam Vokes, who
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Wales’ absolutely thrilling 3-1 victory over Belgium on Friday night at the Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille had everything.
It had Hal Robson-Kanu, a winger recently released by lowly English championship club Reading, scoring a game-winning goal fit for the greats – imagined with astonishing chutzpah and executed with imperious skill.
Before that, it had Ashley Williams – who couldn’t move his left arm after a collision just six days ago in the Round of 16 game against Northern Ireland – hauling his side level with a headed goal from an Aaron Ramsey corner.
It had substitute Sam Vokes, who earlier in the tournament became the first Burnley player to ever appear in this competition, sticking the dagger in the second-ranked team in the world with a phenomenal flick-on header to make it 3-1 Wales.
The Welsh, led admirably by Chris Coleman – who took the national team job four-and-a-half years ago after his friend Gary Speed committed suicide – are one game away from the European Championship Final in their first major tournament in 58 years.
It’s the stuff of dreams.
For Belgium, on the other hand, it was an embarrassment a long time in coming. For the better part of four years under Marc Wilmots, the country’s golden generation has tried to survive on talent alone.
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But if these finals have shown us anything, it’s that talent gets you nowhere without coaching, chemistry, and commitment.
This isn’t an original story. It’s how Iceland beat England, how Italy beat Spain, and, fittingly enough, how those Italians beat these Belgians over two weeks ago at the tournament’s onset.
The teams who have had to be teams to be successful have made this tournament theirs. Wales, it’s clear even to an outsider, is a team with a united front. They’re close off the field, close on it, and having the time of their lives.
And while they defended well, this was no rearguard action. The Welsh went forward aplenty, dominating the game after a thunderbolt of an opener from Belgium’s chain-smoking central midfielder Radja Nainggolan.
Against England, the magnitude of the moment got to Wales. After going 1-0 up on a Gareth Bale free-kick, they retreated in every sense and lost their lead. Here, though, they took the game to Belgium – the de facto home team in Lille – and were deserved winners.
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The Belgians were hit by injury in defense – playing without four would-be starters in central defense – but their utter fecklessness in attacking the same 5-3-2 that they saw against Italy was both a tactical and a patriotic embarrassment.
That Wilmots’ response to his team’s lackluster first half was to bring on Marouane Fellani told the story well enough. It will be fun to see what Belgium does with a real coach in Russia.
Sadly for the Belgians though, the leadership void extended beyond the manager. Playing without the inspirational Vincent Kompany, Wilmots’ team lacked a driving force. Wales, meanwhile, had leaders all over the field.
Williams, the captain of the national team and Wales’ leading club Swansea City, played the end of that Northern Ireland came with one arm. In the buildup to the Belgium match, he didn’t miss a single training session.
That was more than could be said for Eden Hazard, standing in as Belgium captain. Academic? Maybe. But it spoke to a bigger pattern. Wales was tough physically, mentally, and everywhere in between. The Belgians weren’t.
Ramsey deserves his fair share of credit. The player who was once stripped of the captaincy by Coleman was a creative force in Wales’ midfield – and the embodiment of composure after being shown an incredibly soft yellow card that will see him suspended for the semifinal.
But it all comes back to Bale. Even on a day when the Welsh superstar wasn’t on the score-sheet, his influence was everywhere. It’s very possible that he is both the continent’s best player and its best leader. This Welsh team is as tightly knit as they come.
Bale has talked plenty in this tournament – first about England’s lack of pride, then about how Wales is Belgium’s “bogey team” – and his team has followed suit, captured on video wildly celebrating England’s elimination at the hands of Iceland on Monday.
They said they were simply happy to be the last home nation in France. Now, they’re the first home nation to make it to the semifinals of a major tournament since England twenty years ago at Euro ’96.
Ramsey will be a huge loss in the next game, as will center-back Ben Davies. Both are victims of UEFA’s absurd yellow card rule. Nonetheless, the Welsh should be licking their lips in anticipation of this semifinal matchup.
Portugal, after all, is an aggressively bad version of Belgium – a negative, poorly coached team that has, somehow, arrived at this stage of the competition without winning a single one of its first five games in France in normal time.
If anything, it’s the supposedly formidable Portuguese who have benefited the most from the expansion of this tournament from 16 to 24 teams. Of these two teams, it’s Wales who won automatic qualification, won their group, and won both of their knockout round matches in normal time.
Bale against Ronaldo? Sure, if you want to bill it that way. But on Wednesday night in Lyon, Bale will have an army. That’s the point. That’s why they’ve made it as far as they have.
Said the manager Coleman after the game, “Dream! Don’t be afraid to have dreams.” Well then, Wales – why you don’t you go win the whole thing?
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