Craig Bellamy was full of pride in his Wales team despite a painful 4-3 defeat to Belgium in a dramatic World Cup qualifier on Monday night.
The amazing game saw the home team race into a 3-0 lead thanks to goals from Romelu Lukaku, Youri Tielemans and Jeremy Doku before the half-hour mark.
There was a scrap of hope for Wales when Harry Wilson scored a penalty just before the break and the visitors were sensationally level by 69 minutes thanks to goals from Sorba Thomas and Brennan Johnson.
It looked set to be a famous draw for the Welsh but an 88th minute Kevin De Bruyne winner broke their hearts and ultimately left them unrewarded for their efforts.
Bellamy was only looking at the positives, though, and was thrilled with the fight his players showed after a nightmare start.
‘Since September when I first came in, I’ve felt immensely proud to be their coach,’ he told the BBC. ‘Every training session, every game they’ve left me with that.
‘To come here, I hope second half they’ve seen what they can do. They have to understand how good they are. That was pleasing. I hope this gives us the belief to be the team we want to be. We move on from here.’
He added: ‘To come to a top eight team in the world and play that well, that’s going to give us so much.
‘I don’t like the defeats and I don’t feel like “unlucky Wales.” No, we need to win these games. But after being 3-0 down when we could have gone the other way, for them to believe in themselves, I believe that will give us so much going forward.’
Fulham’s Wilson took a similar stance and knows there is plenty more football to play in Group J after picking up seven points from the first four matches.
‘It’s a tough one to take,’ he said. ‘We didn’t start great giving them a three-goal lead, but we have to take positives from the way we reacted.
‘We felt we were always in the game and once we got the goal before half-time we just kept believing and kept being patient.
‘We showed we can go toe-to-toe with a top-10 team and we’re just gutted at the end.
‘It shows what we’re about, we’ve pulled it back before. We’d rather not give a team like Belgium a three-goal lead, but we scored three goals and we probably should be leaving with something.
‘The group is far from done and if we perform like the second half we will still have a big say in this group, and if we win every game it’s still in our hands.’
Wales are second in Group J, one point behind North Macedonia with Belgium in third place but having only played two matches while the two teams ahead of them have played four.
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