On a sour note for Wales, though, they will be without inspirational midfielder Aaron Ramsey in their semi-final in Lyon on Wednesday after he picked up a booking that has ruled him out of the match.
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“Today we played a great first 20 minutes, at the end of the match we all said that we would have liked to continue because we have a lot of quality, but they played with more desire than us today”. So obviously, we got the goal back and we went in at half time the much better team.
“I’m really gutted. But I’m confident in the players we have to step in and get us to the final”. When it is time to defend we will defend with our lives and when it is time to attack we will attack with our lives.
“The semi-final will be built up as Bale vs Ronaldo but that’s the beauty of football, that’s for people to enjoy”.
“We’ve grown in confidence, we’ve been learning from maybe mistakes we’ve made before”.
Defender Ben Davies will also miss the semi-final and Ramsey described his foul as a “natural reaction”, accepting he deserved to be booked for the offence.
“And three fantastic goals”, he added of well-taken efforts by skipper Ashley Williams, Hal Robson-Kanu and Sam Vokes, all of which came after Radja Nainggolan gave Belgium a 13th minute lead.
Coleman, however, says his players, who had endured several failed qualification campaigns before reaching Euro 2016, will not be feeling the strain with a best-ever tournament finish and a place in Welsh soccer history books up for grabs.
Wales are unbeaten in four games against the Red Devils over the last two and a half years, having drawn twice in Brussels and beaten them in Euro qualifying just over a year ago.
The Belgians suffered a 3-1 defeat to Wales in Lille, and will now be forced to reflect on another disappointing tournament following on from the 2014 World Cup. Wales now realised they were on the brink of the most momentous stage of Welsh footballing history. As a back three or as a team we will look to overcome that challenge.
“I am certainly very proud of both players and their contributions”, the coach said.
“We played very well and when we needed to defend we defended like soldiers”.
Ramsey took his tally of assists at the tournament to four, joint-level with Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, as he laid on two in the comeback win over Belgium.
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Jonny Williams is the favourite to replace Ramsey in midfield against Portugal.
