Ashley Williams says Scotland can emulate his Welsh wonders and shock and storm the Euros.
The captain of Chris Coleman’s semi-final superheroes in 2016 says Steve Clarke ’s Class of 2021 can follow their relaxed path to a spectacular success story.
Just like Scotland this time around, Williams and his colleagues went into the showpiece written-off and told they’d just be there to savour the occasion upon their major-tournament return after a 58-year absence.
However, the skipper and his dynamic Dragons didn’t just settle for an outing and upset all odds to become national icons by rocketing into the last four of the tournament in a glory run before losing out to Portugal.
Williams reckons Clarke’s men can do something similar as he explained: “100 per cent. Scotland go there knowing they do not have to win the tournament to go back to their country as heroes.
“That’s how we felt. We felt just getting there was enough in the eyes of many and that gives you some freedom to play, to try things and to try and embrace the atmosphere without thinking we HAD to do it.
“We won a lot of games and it was about the momentum and the public was with us.
“Scotland are a different team these days. They are a little bit exciting and I’m definitely going to have my eye on them because I really feel they could upset a few people.
“I’ve played against loads of Steve Clarke teams, but I caught a couple of the qualifying games and they just look like they are playing a style they know they want to play.
“There’s a lot of good players in there who can take control of a game that are playing with good teams, which is similar to what we had with Wales, and maybe didn’t used to happen.
“Perhaps in the past, players in there were not involved with top teams, therefore not used to dealing with big games and that meant the expectations were a lot lower inside the camp.
“Now these Scotland players are facing the best players in the world week on week and they’ll go out expecting to win matches.
“The standards, their levels and their expectations will be much higher than previous years. Scotland have a lot of top players.
“If they look at the individual games in the way we did, they can win any one-off.
“They’ll say what they have to say on the outside, but, inside that group, they’ll have that belief that they have played good stuff to qualify and they can do something if they take that on.”
Speaking as part of Greene King pub’s Euros campaign, Wiliams continued: “The experienced boys in the squad, although they have never been to a tournament, they know football and big games.
“They’ll drill down to the fact it’s just a game. That’s what it is.
“Take away all the glitz and the glamour and the interest from the outside and look purely at the games and they’ll fancy their chances to beat anyone in a one-off just as we did.
“On the back of the last 12 months that everyone has had, what an opportunity to put smiles on faces.”
Greene King will be showing games at more than 1,000 pubs, celebrating the return of international football. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, tables should be booked in advance.
