It’s your typical Friday night quarter final at the European championship. England have flopped, Ireland have sung and danced and the Welsh have a chance of reaching a semi which usually only happens when confronted with a nice lamb dinner.
Wales are a massive shot to topple the Belgians in 90 minutes and while we’re not tipping that, we’re instead looking back to our daily goalscorer bets and the classic tip for anytime goalscorer for Wales (hint – it’s not Simon Church).
Gareth Bale at
Come on, who else was it gonna be? Wales and Belgium met twice in qualifying and guess who scored the only goal in those two games? The same player that has got Wales to the quarters. Bale’s been relishing under the pressure of carrying his country and will be coming up against a weakened Belgian defence (missing Vermaelen and Vertonghen).
The Real Madrid star has been clinical in his four games so far this tournament, only failing to score against Northern Ireland in the last 16. 12 shots on target in four games and the fastest player at the championship. No other player has looked like scoring and no other Welsh player will score until they land back in Cardiff and return to the fields of the valleys to Dolly and Shaun. Aaron Ramsey has been linking up with Bale well, assisting two of the five Welsh goals so far at the Euros.
The alternative
Yann Carrasco at
This quarter final is going to be incredibly tight. The Belgians have been a second half team – leading at half time in only three of their last 14 matches. Three of their four games at Euro 2016 have been that way and they managed to win two of them (against Ireland and Sweden).
They’ve been absolutely devestating on the counter attack, particularly against a relatively strong Irish defence. Wales will probably try and repeat their performance against England in the group particularly if they score first. Which means Belgium will have to grind them down.
Enter the Belgian subs and enter Yann Carrasco. He started in three group games but got dropped for the quarter final against Hungary, making the most of his cameo off the bench by netting the fourth goal in the dominant win. If Belgium are struggling, look to Carrasco.