Wales manager Rob Page stated that the team will support Daniel James after the winger missed the important penalty in the team's devastating penalty shootout loss to Poland.
After dominating Finland 4-1 in a one-sided semi-final, Wales went into Tuesday’s playoff final for Euro 2024 full of confidence and had home advantage at a loud Cardiff City Stadium.
However, the two teams could not be separated after normal and extra time, and second-half substitute James was stopped by Wojciech Szczesny after nine perfect strikes in the Welsh capital.
The defeat meant Wales missed their third successive European Championships, while Poland secured their place at the tournament for the fifth time in a row.
In an interview with S4C just after the shootout, Page commended his players and backed James for stepping up and having the 'bravery' to take a penalty.
‘It’s a harsh game, that's what I just told the players. Just one kick away from qualifying and it hurts,’ a visibly emotional Page said.
‘I thought we were the superior team. My message to the players at halftime was: “We are the better team, we’ll go on to win this game”.
‘We made a couple of changes, we brought [David] Brooksy on and we had to take him back off. He’s not trained for two days since last Thursday, he’s had an illness, but we needed fresh legs on again.
‘I’ve just to the group, “Look how far we’ve come that we’re that disappointed that we haven’t qualified for a major tournament”. There’s something good happening with this group, absolutely.
‘Ben [Davies] just said it on the pitch, I’ve just said it in the changing room: we’ll rally around Dan [James], he had the bravery to take that penalty and I am just so, so proud of that group.’
Page is confident his young Welsh team will come away from the 'horrible' defeat 'bigger and stronger' due to the experience.
‘The nation should be proud of them because they’ve put in a shift, and some, tonight to try to get us there,’ he added.
‘We’re disappointed but we’ll be bigger and stronger from having gone through this awful, awful experience.’
When asked about his message for Wales fans after the defeat, Page responded: ‘I’ve just said to the group that we’re going somewhere. This team is going somewhere.
‘They’re so disappointed that they’ve not qualified, they’re hungry for it and we were almost there tonight.
‘We were one kick away from qualifying so there’s a lot more to come and a lot of good times ahead.’
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