Portugal 2-0 Wales: five talking points from the semi-final in Lyon

Gareth Bale contemplates defeat with Chris Gunter at the end of the match against Portugal on Wednesday. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

1) Wales can look back on the tournament with pride and no regrets

This was the death of a dream, but not a reason to wallow or curse at the thought of what might have been. Wales have been a breath of fresh air at this championship, a side back at a major finals for the first time since 1958 having excelled on the pitch while their magnificent support chorused them gloriously from the stands. They missed the banned Aaron Ramsey’s composure and creation here but, even so, it took a phenomenon in Cristiano Ronaldo to break them. Gareth Bale and Ramsey have played their stellar roles but there have been outstanding performers throughout the squad: from James Chester at the back, through the bearded Joe Ledley in midfield – it is staggering to consider he broke his leg in early May – and the clubless but tireless Hal Robson-Kanu up front. “We can’t come off with any regrets,” said Chris Coleman before kick-off. Even in defeat, they should return home with none.

Cristiano Ronaldo ends Wales fairytale to put Portugal in Euro 2016 final: Portugal 2: Wales 0.

The Wales defence can only watch as Cristiano Ronaldo heads in the opening goal of the Euro 2016 semi-final for Portugal. Photograph: Carl Recine/Reuters

Gareth Bale had made the point that Wales’s historic run to the Euro 2016 semi-final had somehow not felt real. “In a way, it doesn’t,” he said, earlier in the week. The craziness had been on the outside. They were insulated inside their bubble.

This was the night when it popped; when the brutal reality intervened. And when Cristiano Ronaldo decided that it was time he made a grand statement at this championship. There had been the fear among the Wales support that, after some indifferent performances, Ronaldo was surely due to step up. He scored the opening goal with a punishing header and set up the second for Nani. Point made.

Portugal have known plenty of pain in major semi-finals; they had previously lost five of their six across this tournament and the World Cup. But it belonged to Wales here. Despite Bale’s non-stop endeavours, they struggled sorely to create too much of clear-cut note. The suspended midfielder, Aaron Ramsey, was missed.

Aaron Ramsey at the beating, Belgium-battering heart of Wales’s glory

As the clock ran down in those febrile, oddly still moments after Sam Vokes’s goal had confirmed what everyone in the Stade Pierre Mauroy already knew, the Welsh end lolled and bounced around like a huge, seething red-shirted basket of kittens. Wales were 3-1 up against Belgium, on their way to the semi-finals, and two games away from actually winning this tournament.

Really, though, this was too much detail. It was simply a glorious, self-contained moment, the kind that never leaves fans who were there, the sky in Flanders filled with the crackles and shouts and roars of a crowd entirely drunk on the spectacle. On the pitch Belgium’s players scurried about looking beaten and flattened and frankly a little incredulous.