can you believe it? They're in the Euro semifinals

ESPN FC's Craig Burley has nothing but praise for Hal Robson-Kanu.

LILLE, France -- It's a game. It's a bunch of men I don't know, strangers in red jerseys, chasing a ball. The only thing I have in common with them is Welsh blood, and a pride in it. They played a team of Belgians here Friday night. There is nothing to hate about Belgium. (Some of their players, maybe, but Belgium is fine.) I don't know why any of this matters as much as it does. But it does. It really, really does.
It all started off so badly. A heavy rain was falling. It seemed like seconds before Belgium were lashing at the Welsh goal. There was a stretch of three shots in quick succession. Wayne Hennessey stopped the first one. Neil Taylor stopped the second. It's still not clear to me who stopped the third: Wales did.
And then in the 12th minute, the inevitable disaster. A ball from Eden Hazard, into Radja Nainggolan. He lined up from 35 yards and struck the ball so cleanly, I'm not sure he ever felt it on his foot. It launched toward goal. Hennessey got a slightly late start on it, because it was hidden by a defending Aaron Ramsey, and he dived across his net, his fingertips just touching the ball. Rain shook off the mesh, 1-0.
Maybe eight minutes later, three yellow cards for the Welsh later, it was all so close to slipping away. The first quarterfinal of a major tournament for Wales since their World Cup loss to Brazil in 1958, and this team wouldn't advance any further than the last. Belgium might win by three, by four. Ramsey had his head down. Gareth Bale was walking more than he was running. It was a pivotal hinge in the mechanics of the entire game. It was time to decide how the rest of it was going to play out.
On Thursday, coach Chris Coleman was asked about his team's spirit, the magnificent, beautiful spirit of Wales. He was asked in the context of his side's unabashed off-field love for one another. He issued a correction to the question. How they feel about one another when they're not playing football doesn't matter, he said. What matters is where that loves goes when the game turns sideways, when Wales buckle under, when they lose 6-1 to Serbia in World Cup qualification, when they go down 1-0 to Belgium at Euro.
"The team spirit comes from being on the pitch," Coleman said. "And being in situations on the pitch when it's really tough and difficult and you either hide from the challenge or you stand up to it. That's where team spirit comes from. It doesn't come from off the pitch, team spirit. That's false team spirit. Team spirit comes from on the pitch. And that's where this group get it from, because they've stood up for each other."
Gareth Bale, the everyman superhero, pounded the dragon on his chest after the win, the embodiment of Wales' spirit.
      Hide or stand up. In the 26th minute, Taylor had a point-blank shot on Thibaut Courtois, who made a terrific save. It wasn't a goal, but it was a chance, an opening, a thin ray of light.
In the 30th minute, Ramsey lined up a Welsh corner. He lifted it into the box. Ashley Williams, the captain, rose out of the crowd and headed it home. Tied. The score was tied.
It was still tied at halftime. A few moments to breathe.
Again the Belgians came out firing like engines. They managed three good chances in the first five minutes of the second half. Marc Wilmots urged on his players and the crowd. The Belgians roared.
It's hard to explain the sensation just then, caring so much about something, and having it feel so far outside of yourself. Despair is too strong a word, but resignation probably isn't. Maybe fear is better. I can't speak for any other Welsh supporter in that moment, but I know how I felt: I felt as though I was going to be sick.
Then in the middle of all that fear, out of all those collective trembles, Hal Robson-Kanu found the ball in the Belgian box in the 55th minute. He was surrounded by Belgians. I thought he'd held the ball too long. There was an open man to his left. I'm sorry, Hal, but I swore at you. I said terrible things. And then he -- you, you beauty -- pulled off the most incredible move, a turn and a hip drop, and suddenly he had a clear shot. He manufactured a perfect chance out of nothing, and he finished it just as perfectly: 2-1.
Wales were winning.
The tears started welling then, because now there was hope as well as fear, a gut-deep churn of emotions, good and bad. Were Wales to lose now, it would feel like their loss to England in the group stage multiplied by about a million. But here they were, emergent, fighting, determined, strong, together. They were everything you could hope for in a football team. They were just everything to me and all of us then.
One more. One more to seal it. Chris Gunter to Sam Vokes, a finishing header in the 85th minute, 3-1.
They had done it.
Somehow Wales had found a way to win, to knock out mighty Belgium, to advance to their first major semifinal ever, against Portugal, now one step away from the end.
I buried my face into the back of a friend and I wept. I still don't know why any of this matters, but I know so completely that it does. I was thinking of my stocky Welsh father, my huge-hearted dad, and all my Welsh relatives, my generous and extraordinarily emotional aunts and uncles and cousins, and I was thinking of the coastlines of Pembrokeshire, the broad beaches where we used to play football as children. I was thinking of how warm everything is there and how warm this team is and how I couldn't love any of them any more than I do.
I love every last magical thing about them, these strangers, this family. They are incredible. I love that Gareth Bale, our everyman superhero, pounded the dragon on his chest and looked at the sky.
I love that the Welsh fans sang the anthem again, the stadium empty except for them, and I wish you all could have heard the sound of their singing, rising into the night.
And I love that Chris Coleman had a microphone pointed at him not long after he had guided his team to victory, and when he was asked "Can you put that into words for us?" he said: "No. I can't."
Because at some point there are no words. There is no explanation. There is only the mystery of connection and the depth of inexplicable feeling. There's no reason to wonder anymore why they exist. All that matters to me right now is that they do.