Owain Fon Williams column: We've surprised people - but we're here to win Euro 2016
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During this summer’s European Championships, Caley Thistle and Wales goalkeeper Owain Fon Williams will be penning an exclusive column for The Inverness Courier. He looks ahead to the massive game with Belgium tonight and some risky shenanigans between the players.
THE whole of Dinard has got behind Wales.
We went for walk and a coffee in the town on Tuesday and a few of the boys went on to the beach for an ice cream.
There are Wales flags in the shop windows and all the people have bought into it. We thought it’d be nice to show our appreciation and let them meet some of the superstars in our team. As soon as you know who gets off the bus, all the cameras are on him. The moment Gareth Bale comes out to train, you see all the lenses spin round on to him and hear the clicks of the cameras.
We’ve been doing all we can to suss out Belgium and how they’re going to play. We’ve played them three times in the last 18 months, drawing twice and winning once, and the style of play won’t have changed.
They’ve scored five goals from counter-attacks at this competition, so we know that’s where they’re going to be strong. We watched them beat Hungary and Eden Hazard was on fire – but they’ve got a squad of star players.
It’s a cup final for us. The boys have played so many games in a short number of days that it’s important they’re well-rested. The longer you’re in the competition the harder the games are going to be.
From the outside point-of-view, we’ve gone further than anyone expected. But we know there’s no reason we can’t go all the way, with the togetherness we have. It’s something many nations won’t have – the only other team I’ve seen similar is the Italians, where you can see their emotions after the games that it means so much to them.
You would think that being together for six weeks you’d be tired of one another. But it’s gone smoothly and everyone is still driven and motivated to get the job done. If everyone is on the same page and has the same mentality, you are 75 per cent of the way there. The rest looks after itself.
I know there was a video leaked of us celebrating after the England-Iceland game, but that’s the same after every game. We all watch games together – when Northern Ireland were playing we were all bouncing up and down singing “Will Grigg’s on fire”.
We have good craic here – it was an in-house goal to be the last British team in the competition but we are here to try and win it. The video shows our togetherness, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
We often have court sessions where the 23 boys are split into four teams and if anyone has been caught out – being late, messing about, not wearing the right gear – they’ll have forfeits to do.
Myself and Joe Ledley got caught messing about after training and I had to call the Welsh FA about some dodgy tickets I had sold to some Russians and I needed a bodyguard. Joe had to ring the manager, tell him he was homesick and wanted to leave. It was brilliant!
Danny Ward is up there quite a bit – he’s late for breakfast and meetings quite often. George Williams gets nominated a fair bit too. But it keeps the boys on their toes. I saw the Iceland manager was annoyed because a few guys were late for dinner after the England game – no-one wants to get sloppy at this stage.
