The Northern Ireland fans and players have had an extremely strong mutual affection and admiration for the duration of the Euro 2016 competition in France, however the team were eliminated on Saturday after a 1-0 loss to Wales.
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The last time Wales reached the quarterfinals of a major soccer tournament, at the 1958 World Cup.
“They’re all big games and the next one is the quarters”.
Wales held Belgium twice in Brussels and won 1-0 in Cardiff just over a year ago when Gareth Bale’s victor all but booked their place at this European Championship.
Gareth McAuley, whose own goal sent Wales through, and Aaron Hughes are both 36, Chris Baird is 34 and goalkeeper Roy Carroll is four years older than him. It was sloppy display, shown by the losing side defender. However, it was Renato Sanches who launched a quick break to feed Nani on the left. “I don’t think it would have been undeserved had we got that”.
“We put everything into it and had the better chances in the first half but it wasn’t meant to be our day”.
“He has managed to find a system that works for us, giving us the best opportunity to get results with the players we have got”.
It is a different story for Michael McGovern, whose heroics in the Northern Ireland goal have earned him a comparison to the great Pat Jennings by coach Martin O’Neill.
“We knew it was going to be an ugly match”, Bale said.
It was a tense encounter, with the unfortunate Gareth McAuley’s late own goal settling the tie, and the burden of being favourites appeared to weigh heavily on Wales.
England, the other country from the United Kingdom playing in the Euro, will play Iceland in their pre-quarter final match and will hope to remain in the tournament unlike what they had dimed for in the referendum. “I didn’t think we deserved to lose”.
“I felt it was a very tight game”.
Coleman, while graceful enough to accept that it was a lucky win for his men, praised their ability to cope with hard games such as the one they had against N. Ireland on Saturday. Northern Ireland played well today and we didn’t play as well as we could.
Northern Ireland striker Conor Washington has admitted that he is “devastated” to have seen his side’s European Championship dreams come to an end.
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“With so much riding on this game, it was really going to take a goal with a little bit of a luck and we got that”. “I couldn’t ask anything more of the players throughout the tournament”.
