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Sister dailies salute football ‘heroes’ with front page wraps

Three sister dailies ran front page wraparounds this morning praising the Wales national football team after their dream of becoming European champions ended last night.

Trinity Mirror newspapers the South Wales Echo, South Wales Evening Post and Western Mail all went with wraps this morning after Wales lost to Portugal in Lyon.

Two second half goals for the Portuguese put the Euro 2016 final beyond the reach of the Welsh.

Portugal will now face France or Germany in Sunday’s final in Paris.

Wrap SWE

The Echo, pictured above, also ran a wrap yesterday ahead of the match.

The Mail, below, used a pictured of the team singing the Welsh national them prior to last night’s semi-final.

Wrap WM

 

Both the Mail and the Swansea-based Evening Post, pictured below, dubbed the little fancied team ‘Heroes’ after the defeat.

Wrap SWEP

 

Wales Online, the digital arm of the Echo and the Mail, also covered the match live from both the stadium in Lyon, and fanzones in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and Singleton Park, Swansea.

Video of the anthem being sung in the Principality Stadium was live on the site within 10 minutes of the game starting and had been watched 15,000 times by midnight.

More users visited the website yesterday than any day in the its history (736,000), while nearly 3.5m users have read Euro 2016 since the tournament started.

Paul Rowland, Trinity Mirror South Wales editor-in-chief, said: “Euro 2016 has been an incredible experience not just for the Welsh football team, but the whole nation.

“It’s been amazing to see the entire country come together over the past month to support the boys.

“What’s happened on the pitch has been monumental, but that’s only been half the story. Our job has been to try to capture the mood of our audience, and answer the questions that are on their minds, and I think our team here has done that superbly, both online and in print.”