When the final whistle blew in Zenica, Coleman thought Wales’ first defeat of the qualifying campaign meant waiting until the last Group B fixture on Wednesday (HK time) to seal a place at Euro 2016.
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The only previous tournament appearance came at the 1958 World Cup, but they actually failed to qualify from their group and benefited from political unrest in the Middle East to earn a play-off match against Israel – and that was only after Belgium passed up the opportunity to play.
“We can’t be going there thinking “it’ll be nice”. We have got to go to France and try to do the business.
“Now we’re there, great”.
“We’ve already done that in this campaign, so there’s nothing to be afraid of”.
“The players won’t have that attitude and probably the real pressure starts now”.
Wales secured their place when Israel lost 2-1 at home to Cyprus.
Wales’ biggest star footballer, Gareth Bale, was ecstatic over his side qualifying for the European Championship as he experienced “the best defeat of my life” following their 2-0 loss against Bosnia-Herzegovina, the ESPN FC reported.
“We’ve got the sort of players where we can soak it up and on our day we can hurt anybody”, Coleman said. We know that. We have got a team that has been together for a long time and we have finally produced.
“In worldwide football it’s not all about running about for 90 minutes like chickens without any heads – you’ll just get picked off”.
“Portugal would be a good one but they could be part of a mini-tournament in Miami”, Coleman said. “From the first game to tonight they have given me their all”.
Bale has won the Champions League, Copa del Rey and the Super Cup since joining Real from Tottenham in the summer of 2013 for a world record £85.3million fee.
Asked if the rejection of his plans would preclude him from signing a new deal as Wales manager, Coleman replied: “I’ve no idea”.
“I watched the Bosnia game with a mate where we live and really, really enjoyed it and couldn’t believe it when the score came through from the other match [Israel 1-2 Cyprus] – fantastic!”
“It’s always been about what we can achieve in terms of qualification and now they are getting all the plaudits now and they deserve it”.
“But there are things that we need to change a little bit if we’re going to push on and don’t want this to be a one-off”.
“A lot of us have had bad nights playing for Wales, and we all want to play on Tuesday night”.
Ramsey’s goal will be a welcome sight for Arsenal supporters.
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Goals from Milan Djuric and Vedad Ibisevic could not dampen Welsh spirits as players, staff and fans celebrated in the pouring rain at the Bilino Polje Stadium. We have been superb, we have been really hard to beat.
