A semi-final outing in Euro has got Ashley Williams optimistic enough to hope that the Dragons might be the World Champions in 24 months’ time.
Making the Euro Cup finals was achievement enough for Wales and even if they had been sent packing before the knockout round of the main competition, it wouldn’t have fetched them much criticism.
But, not only did they just get to the first knockout round which was the Round of 16, but, went two steps further than that and ended up in the Round of 4. The level of expectations was crossed by some margin.
And that’s why the welcome they received back home was nothing short of what should be the welcome of the Champions. The whole of the country was over the moon.
Nobody can say there was a whole lot of luck involved in Wales’ campaign at all. They advanced to the pre quarter final as the no. 1 team of the group they were in and the victories they secured in the pre quarter final and the quarter final were the comprehensive victories, the latter was in fact against the second ranked team in the world.
According to Williams, he told his teammates during the parade in the capital city that he couldn’t even imagine what the scenes would be like if they had indeed come back with the title.
The skipper is hopeful to get the title home in 2018 and have another similar parade at that time. But, it is certainly too far away for now.
Securing qualification to the World Cup should be on the agenda first and the qualification matches are starting in just about 8 weeks with Wales scheduled to lock horns with Moldova on 5th of September.