Preview: Wales vs Belgium

At the Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille, Belgium will have a tricky test as they will play against Wales in what should be a hard fought match.

Star-studded Belgium will start as favourites to reach the semi-finals, but Wales got the best of them in the qualifying campaign after beating them 1-0, with Bale scoring the winner in Cardiff last June.

According to various reports in the media, if Wales are eliminated by Belgium, they will go home as heroes, but Gareth bale has no intention of doing that.

In comments given to the media, the Welsh forward said that the current Wales squad is the best in fifty eight years. He also referred to the mentioned game played one year ago as a turning point for Wales, and hopes that such match will give Chris Coleman’s side a psychological edge.

Bale also spoke about the enjoyment of having their camp in the small coastal town of Dinard in Brittany, overlooking the English Channel. In fact, he described it as “like being on holiday with your mates”.

Despite Bales comments, the Welsh players are studying Belgium's last performance in which they brought their opponents into nothing. With the vast amount of star players, Mark Wilmots side can still go into the match knowing that if they play at their best, they have what it takes to beat Wales.

The Red Devils had finally come to life after some unconvincing and inconsistent displays in the group stage. They were defeated by Italy in the opening group game, but bounced back with an excellent 3-0 win over Ireland, which was followed by a narrow 1-0 win over Sweden. However, Hungary were not expected to trouble them much in the knock-out clash and Marc Wilmots can take a lot of positives with the big win. He had specifically pin pointed the impressive performance of captain Eden Hazard, but we hope he like to see more of the same from Kevin De Bruyne in the coming stages.

Hostory also favours the Belgians since they won five matches against Wales, while Wales won four. The remaining three matches ended up in a draw.

Wales will still have to see whether their captain, Ashley Williams will feature after colliding with Jonathan Williams in the last stages of the Northern Ireland match.

On the other hand, Belgium will be without Thomas Vermaelen who picked his second yellow card in the match against Hungary. Moreover, they will still have to check about the fitness of Jan Vertonghen who got injured during training.

The match will be controlled by Damir Skomina from Slovenia.