Vida would come close for Croatia late in the match, but soon the referee would blow the final whistle and Portugal were through to the quarter-finals where they will play Poland next week. Portugal tried to take over but Croatia didn’t let us; then again, Croatia tried to take over and we didn’t let them win either. A hapless display by Poland, who by opting not to play their natural brand of football, gave Switzerland the chance to get comfortable on the ball and really dictate the game.
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“There was so much riding on this game”, an elated Coleman said after the game.
O’Neill, speaking about the loss to Wales, said he “felt it was a very tight game” so to lose the game the way the team did was “very, very cruel”.
Conor Washington admitted the manner of Northern Ireland’s Euro 2016 exit on Saturday was tougher to accept than any thrashing would have been. This group of boys fight, we work hard all the time no matter how the game’s panning out. We’ve got one or the other.
“They scored in the 117th minute, I congratulate them”.
“I’m very happy, of course”, said Sanches after the game. Bale has three goals in four games and it was his unsafe cross that led to the Gareth McAuley’s own goal.
Former Wales captain Kevin Ratcliffe, part of BBC Wales’ commentary team in France, believes Belgium would rather play anyone else but Wales.
Hungary and Belgium meet in Toulouse on Sunday night for the right to play Wales in Lille on Friday.
In the end, however, a brilliant cross from Bale – the type of top-quality player Northern Ireland were missing in the final third – was decisive.
“We played Poland in 2012, (striker Robert) Lewandowski is a very good player, nearly all their players play in the Bundesliga”.
“We were prepared”, Santos added.
“It was an wonderful experience that I’ll never forget”.
The Real Madrid forward’s run of scoring in each match at Euro 2016 came to an end and he knew the free-flowing nature of the 3-0 win over Russian Federation was unlikely to be repeated against Michael O’Neill’s well-drilled side. “You never know [what could happen] if you get a result there”. We could have become ill-disciplined and lost our shape but we hung in when we needed to.
“We have dealt with it before and we will be up against it”, Coleman said.
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Poland are a well organized team with the danger of Robert Lewandowski up front, but their star man hasn’t impressed at this tournament, and they required penalties to get past Switzerland in the Round of 16.
