Just got in.
Weird, joyful night and a game that was almost frictionless in the lack of problems Hungary gave us yet was still tense until at least the 90th minute mark because...well, because we're Wales and we've spent my lifetime fucking these things up (even for 2016 we qualified while losing).
We never really seemed to get going in this group, I think tonight is possibly the first time we've been in the top two - we certainly haven't been so since the opening game. The two defeats from the brutal away double header in Croatia and Hungary (that could easily have yielded up to four points such were the fine margins involved) seemed to put us out of things and I thought we'd have to win every game from then on in.
Turns out we just had to make sure we didn't lose any and winning the two games in this last double-header, really quite comfortably, got us over the line.
I'm still not sure about Giggs, every team he picks has at least one selection that dumbfounds me, but he's got us through somehow and I'm intrigued to see how he approaches a tournament finals. That's assuming he stays, he still seems quite fragile, almost lonely, in the job.
I am sure about Aaron Ramsey and that he is the greatest footballer, nay the greatest man, on the planet and probably of all time. I feel privileged and grateful to come from the same little country as him and for our lifetimes to overlap.
Tonight we partied like it was 2016. We're getting the band back together for another European tour (well, Baku & Rome or Copenhagen & St Petersburg- which are apparently the only two groups we can be in) and if it's a fraction of the fun last time was (and thank gawd it hasn't proven to be the only time) then we're going to have a blast.
Weird, joyful night and a game that was almost frictionless in the lack of problems Hungary gave us yet was still tense until at least the 90th minute mark because...well, because we're Wales and we've spent my lifetime fucking these things up (even for 2016 we qualified while losing).
We never really seemed to get going in this group, I think tonight is possibly the first time we've been in the top two - we certainly haven't been so since the opening game. The two defeats from the brutal away double header in Croatia and Hungary (that could easily have yielded up to four points such were the fine margins involved) seemed to put us out of things and I thought we'd have to win every game from then on in.
Turns out we just had to make sure we didn't lose any and winning the two games in this last double-header, really quite comfortably, got us over the line.
I'm still not sure about Giggs, every team he picks has at least one selection that dumbfounds me, but he's got us through somehow and I'm intrigued to see how he approaches a tournament finals. That's assuming he stays, he still seems quite fragile, almost lonely, in the job.
I am sure about Aaron Ramsey and that he is the greatest footballer, nay the greatest man, on the planet and probably of all time. I feel privileged and grateful to come from the same little country as him and for our lifetimes to overlap.
Tonight we partied like it was 2016. We're getting the band back together for another European tour (well, Baku & Rome or Copenhagen & St Petersburg- which are apparently the only two groups we can be in) and if it's a fraction of the fun last time was (and thank gawd it hasn't proven to be the only time) then we're going to have a blast.
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