There will be
no love lost between Real Madrid team-mates Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo
when Wales face Portugal in Wednesday’s Euro 2016 semi-final, Welsh manager
Chris Coleman said on Sunday.
The clash between 26-year-old Bale, the
tournament’s joint-top scorer with three goals, and Portuguese superstar
Ronaldo, 31, will be the intriguing subplot to the game in Lyon.
While Coleman said that the game will be decided by several factors, he knows
that the Wales number 11 and Portugal number seven will be the centre of
attention.
“They’re two of the best players on the planet. They know each other
very well, but I don’t suppose there will be any love lost on the evening
between both teams, not just Gareth and Cristiano,” he said.
“Both teams know
what’s at stake, so any friendship will have to wait until after the game. It’s
us against them.”
Wales’s superb 3-1 win over Belgium in Lille on Friday took
them into a major tournament semi-final for the first time.
Their chances of
reaching the final may hinge on their capacity to prevent Ronaldo causing
damage, but Coleman believes that Portugal will be equally anxious about facing
Bale.
“In this game, it’s not like I need to pull my defenders aside and say:
‘This team we’re playing, they’ve got a guy up front and his name’s Cristiano
Ronaldo and he does this, that and the other.’ Because they already know,” he
said.
“But we never did that with (Belgium’s) Eden Hazard. We know about them, we
know where the dangers are. I could work my defenders for the next month,
drilling them about Cristiano Ronaldo.
“He still has the capacity to do
something special, unstoppable. Of course that’s a danger. But we’ve got one of
them as well in our team, so it balances itself out.”
Ronaldo makes no secret
of his attachment to the FIFA Ballon d’Or, which he has won three times, but
Coleman does not believe that the trophy is a source of motivation for Bale.
“I
don’t think that is in Gareth’s head,” Coleman told a press conference at
Wales’s media centre in Dinard, northwest France.
“Of course he’s a human
being. Thoughts will run through his mind, but he’ll be thinking about how we
perform in the next game and nothing beyond that.
“His focus will be on the
next opponent and challenge and what he needs to do. That will be in his
thinking more than anything else.”
Labels: Bale, Ronaldo to put friendship aside today's match– Coleman, Ronaldo vs Bale, Wales vs Portugal
