Euro 2016: Wales supporters gather to welcome home the history boyos’

The Manics sang Wales’ official Euro 2016 anthem before the players and management staff were introduced on to the pitch.

“All those years of going overseas and hearing people say ‘Wales, where’s that?”

“To be so close to the final and miss out is disappointing, but we have to be proud of what we’ve achieved”, Bale said.

“The whole nation has enjoyed the journey as much as us and it’s been awesome, incredible”.

The threat of more trouble lingers but Euro 2016 has so far been a chance to escape, and captain Lloris knows how much glory on Sunday would mean to the country.

Wales were given a heroes welcome upon their return home.

Competing in only its second major tournament, and first since the 1958 World Cup, Wales topped its group ahead of England and beat highly fancied Belgium en route to the last four.

It cast a black shadow over the tournament, but following a joyous semi-final victory over Germany, France aim to prevail in a third major final on home soil after the 1984 European Championship and 1998 World Cup. In 2004 in Lisbon with an 18-year-old Ronaldo on the wing, they lost to the tournament’s most unlikely winners yet, a rudimentary but masterfully organised Greece. You have to have heart and desire and that carried us through a lot of games.

“We may not be a world class team but we are no pushovers either”, insisted Santos, whose Portugal term started two years ago with a 2-1 friendly defeat against France at the Stade de France.

The now globally famous “Viking clap”, an awesome example of coordination between thousands of Icelandic fans – it’s been estimated 30,000, almost a tenth of the country’s meagre population, were at some of their games – has provided a rare demonstration of national unity and pride at the tournament.

Bale’s club team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring with a towering header before setting up Nani for the second goal.

“Your playing days are your best days”, he said. Going to France, as we said, we didn’t want to make up the numbers.

“Of course we’ve had some very hard times this year, both with those tragic events, but also with events that have gone on off the field”, said Lloris.

“The hunger is there, the spirit is there and we’ll take all the positives from this and go into the next campaign trying to do it again. This will be my last hit at it, so I will give it my best shot”, Coleman was quoted as saying by Sky Sports on Friday.

Players and supporters then re-enacted the viking “Huh” chant made famous at Euro 2016 by Iceland, the other feel-good story of the tournament. “We believe in ourselves, so do Portugal”.