Euro 2016: Wales and Northern Ireland must channel their emotions in last 16 tie

Home nations primed to battle it out for unexpected spot in quarter-finals

Chris Coleman has been urging his Wales players to seize the moment (Getty)

This is the biggest match in the modern football history of Wales and Northern Ireland, a match they hardly expected to happen and, it must be said, against a lesser rank of opposition than either of them might have feared.

It is an opportunity to reach the quarter-finals of a major tournament which, after waits of 58 years for Wales and 30 for Northern Ireland just to play in one, would be something special. And all of this in the Saturday sun at the Parc des Princes while at home the United Kingdom threatens to tear itself apart.

For the players and the fans of either team this will be it, the probable high point in their short playing careers or their long supporting ones. It may never get better than this, regardless of what happens in the quarter-final against Belgium or Hungary in Lille on Friday. It is very likely to get much worse.

So as much as this game will be decided by the implausibly decisive Gareth Bale, by Michael O’Neill’s minimalistic approach to possession and the novel Welsh 3-4-3, it will also hinge on emotion-management. Not emotion-stifling or emotion-dilution but emotion-direction.

Michael McGovern was the star for Northern Ireland against Germany (Getty)

The favourites of course are Wales, owing to their better players and better form. But when Chris Coleman spoke to the press in Dinard on Wednesday afternoon, what gave him the most confidence was how the players responded to their last-minute loss to England with a performance of dominant authority against Russia in Toulouse.

“We are better in possession than we showed against England,” Coleman explained. “We felt that we missed it. We were angry. The players felt that they had something to prove. So when we faced Russia in this do-or-die game and we needed a result they just let it go. So many have travelled to support our nation. You can either foster that and enjoy it, or you get put off by it and get afraid. The players have accepted the situation they are in, and are enjoying the challenge.”

Having found the right emotional key on Russia, Coleman now hopes they can hit the same note today in Paris. “You don’t want to miss these moments,” he said. “The players have to decide what we want from the next challenge. The bigger the game, the worse it is if you don’t perform. That was the message before the last one: don’t miss it. Don’t miss the occasion, decide how you want it to play out. You are not guaranteed to get a result. It is only when we decide what we can do as a team, what we are good at, that we can affect the result in a positive way.”

Michael O’Neill does not have the same resources that Coleman has, and while Wales won two group games Northern Ireland just won one. They are the underdogs, although they have been for almost every game of O’Neill’s four-year tenure and things have certainly gone better than expected. That is why O’Neill said at his press conference on Friday that he wants his players to “play with loads of emotion, which is a big factor for us.”

Chris Coleman shares a joke with his coaching staff during Euro 2016 (Getty)

O’Neill too pointed back to the group stage successes and hoped that his players could summon up the same levels they showed in Paris against Germany. “You have to cherish every moment because it can disappear very quickly,” he said. “I told the players before the Germany match they’d have to find the game of their lives. They have to do it again now."

But tournament football often comes down to physical and mental freshness and renewal, and after such highs last week the question is whether Wales and Northern Ireland will have anything left in the tank.

That is why Coleman put so much emphasis on the importance of hunger, of moving on from the group stage and those famous wins over Slovakia and Russia. They need to want to win again, and only if they do that will they hit the right levels on Saturday.

“I am never content,” Coleman admitted. “When a special moment happens I enjoy it but I'm over it quite quickly. I remember it, yes, but I want to chase the next one. I was the same as everyone after what happened, brilliant. But we need a little bit more of that. And we can have a bit more of that.”

It was on the plane back from Toulouse on Tuesday afternoon that Coleman sensed that his players had the right attitude and the right desire to push on rather than just reflecting on their success. “We want to go further and we've got a chance,” he said.

“Let's do everything we can to take it. Put yourself in a position where you know you will do your absolute best and you could end up being incredibly disappointed. That's not a nice feeling when you've given everything and it's not enough. It is an empty feeling. That's why people have failed before, because they're afraid of doing that. But we are not. Let’s give everything, let’s ask for everything. We did it against Russia, but now we want to do it again.”