It’s largely thanks to Bale that the first tournament appearance by Wales in 58 years is going to last at least another week after a cagey 1-0 win over British rival Northern Ireland on Saturday put the Welsh in the quarterfinals.
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O’Neill’s men managed to contain Wales stars Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey nearly throughout the game, and it took a 75th-minute own goal from Gareth McAuley off Bale’s whipping cross to go down.
It was a far cry from the 36-year-old centre-back opening the scoring in Northern Ireland’s superb group-stage win over Ukraine but he remained upbeat over the tournament experience for Michael O’Neill’s men. Bale provided Wales with the best chance of the first 70 minutes, with a curling free kick being denied by a solid save from Michael McGovern.
“We knew those of us up front weren’t going to get a lot of the ball because they would close us down and it would be a frustrating night”.
“They played very well. There’s not much space”.
“You can’t ask for anymore”.
And ex-Manchester United defender Evans feels that with Bale leading their line, Wales will be able to beat Hungary or Belgium in the quarter-finals and reach the last four of a major tournament for the first time.
The first half of this Wales vs Northern Ireland sort of looked like a game of football.
Northern Ireland had the better first half and started the second the more expressive of the two sides – but that worked in Wales’ favour.
Instead it was Northern Ireland who procured the few sights of goal, Stuart Dallas testing Wayne Hennessey at his near post. Northern Ireland were the underdogs.
With the on-pitch action failing to satisfy, attention turned to the festivities in the stands. But what Davis, wearing No 8, offered as a No 10 was delivered with such unaffected simplicity that you wonder why most of those with a casual interest in the Premier League could probably not even name him as a Southampton player.
“It’s similar to qualifying, you get one win and the confidence grows”, said Bale.
Wales began to show a sharper cutting edge in the second period, Vokes heading wide from Ramsey’s deep cross and Bale drawing a parry from McGovern with one of his trademark, dipping free-kicks.
Coleman also deserves credit for his use of substitutes; both Jonathan Williams and Robson-Kanu added pace and variation to their attack. Bale then fired in a cross that was perfectly placed to run along the floor inside the six yard box.
The crucial moment eventually came in the 75th minute when Gareth Bale crossed in from the left side.
It turned out to be a frustrating opening 45 minutes for Wales as Coleman retained the starting line-up that had dispatched Russian Federation so assuredly on matchday three.
“He’s a great player and he’s had a good tournament”.
But his song, like the memories of Northern Ireland’s ebullient fans, is likely to echo for some time.
“It’s devastating. We were the better team on the day”, O’Neill said.
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It can not be argued that Wales are not highly dependent on Bale, the world record 85 million pounds forward having scored seven of their 11 goals in qualifying before hitting three more in the opening phase of the tournament to top the scorers’ table alongside Spain’s Alvaro Morata.
