Wales must expect physical battle in British derby – Coleman

“We will be heading back to the Parc des Princes which, as we know from Tuesday night, is a brilliant stadium”.

They had fought their way through the group stages but, after Taylor’s Wales team-mate Aaron Ramsey had scored and missed a penalty in normal time in the Cardiff quarter-final, South Korea prevailed in a spot-kick contest.

“I’ve never seen a better performance from any Wales team than I saw tonight”, said Coleman.

Few will relish facing Bale.

Bale hit the headlines in the build-up to the sides’ encounter in Lens last Thursday by suggesting that no England player would get in the Wales team.

Bale said. “We get bragging rights to finish top”.

“Where we were in the group, we could have finished last, we could have finished top, we could have finished second or third”, he said.

While the teams qualified in very different ways – Wales striding into the knockout phase as group winners, Northern Ireland squeezing through as the fourth of the four best third-place teams – both had reason to thank their lucky stars for the serendipity of the draw. We wanted this, we were desperate for this, I fancied our chances.

“Coming here, I believed we could go the whole way with the whole squad, the way we’re fighting for each other and going the extra mile in games, it’s going to go a long way come the 90th minute”. The 31-year-old goalkeeper, battled hardened by a relegation battle with Hamilton Academical in the Scottish Premier League, hurled himself everywhere to limit Germany to a one goal victory in Group C and is certainly one of the heroes of the tournament.

“He was a great shot-stopper”, Northern Ireland defender Jonny Evans said.

“He’s a very good goalkeeper and probably could be playing at a higher level”.

“That was our main target – to get out of the group”, Ramsey added.

Michael O’Neill’s men have only conceded twice against stiff opposition in Germany, Poland and Ukraine, working tirelessly to earn a vital three points over the last of those.

“We can’t think about Belgium”, Bale said.

They have gone eight encounters without defeat since a 1-0 loss in Cardiff in May 1980, although Coleman’s side required an 89th-minute penalty from Simon Church to rescue a 1-1 draw when the teams last met in March. “We back our players, we’ve got some fantastic strikers”.

The only previous time four were even at a major tournament came in 1958, when Wales and Northern Ireland made it through, but England and Scotland rather spoiled things by getting themselves knocked out in the group stage.

“So, yes we would love to win it, but all our focus now is on Northern Ireland”. That was something we really wanted to improve on [against Russia].