Wales beat Turkey to close on Euro 2020 knockout stage
Aaron Ramsey and Connor Roberts scored as Wales took an enormous step towards reaching the last 16 at Euro 2020 with a 2-0 win over Turkey in Baku on Wednesday.
Wales, semi-finalists five years ago, moved top of Group A before Italy host Switzerland later in the day in Rome.
Captain Gareth Bale missed a penalty before establishing Roberts for his goal during injury time.
"We've given ourselves an excellent opportunity tonight," Ramsey told the BBC.
"It (the penalty) was a major moment in the game but we dug in, to a man we left everything out there. That's what we've built our success on."
Turkey are facing an uphill challenge to attain the knockout stage after losing their first two Group A matches without scoring.
"This seems to become a difficult qualification for us now," Turkey coach Senol Gunes admitted.
"Tonight Wales had an excellent start but we've found our tempo and we've balanced the overall game after. We'd many chances but couldn't find the equaliser."
Gunes dropped Juventus defender Merih Demiral after he scored an own goal in Friday's tournament-opening defeat in Italy.
Robert Page kept the same Wales side from Saturday's 1-1 draw with Switzerland in Baku.
A pro-Turkish crowd was expected as a result of close links between Ankara and Baku, solidified by Turkey's support of Azerbaijan in last year's conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Every early Wales touch was welcomed with whistles from the 30,000 crowd, with up to 4,000 Turkish fans having travelled, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In an exceedingly open first half an hour, both sides had very good chances to open the scoring including Turkey skipper Burak Yilmaz, whose effort was deflected out for a corner, and Wales' Ramsey.
With opportunities at both ends as both teams refused to sit back, the Crescent Stars had two efforts blocked by last-gasp defending on the 30-minute mark.
With two minutes of the half remaining the vocal 'home' support were stunned into silence by Ramsey's opener.
Bale found Ramsey free in the box and the Juventus man chested the ball down before side-footing coolly past Ugurcan Cakir, making amends for missing two glorious earlier chances.
- Bale wastes spot-kick -
The muted crowd rediscovered their voices after the interval as Turkey pressed forward for an equaliser, their finest chance falling to Yilmaz who sent his volley from close range high into the stands.
The game remained open going into the final thirty minutes and Ramsey was just stopped from adding another as Cakir blocked along with his foot, before Bale had an possibility to seal the three points.
He charged into the box and was tripped by Zeki Celik but the one-time priciest player in the world fired his penalty over the crossbar.
Page brought Ethan Ampadu on for the tiring Joe Allen, among just two players remaining from the starting team in the semi-final defeat by Portugal in 2016, with a quarter of one hour left, before Gunes sent on Halil Dervisoglu to partner Yilmaz up front.
Turkey, who were knocked out of your group stage in France at the previous tournament, applied incessant pressure in the closing moments.
With 3 minutes left, Demiral had a golden chance but his free header from a Hakan Calhanoglu corner was brilliantly saved by Wales goalkeeper Danny Ward.
A scuffle broke out in the Wales box in the beginning of injury time after a collision on to the floor and Ben Davies, Chris Mepham and Yilmaz were displayed yellow cards before Page's men grabbed a second goal.
Bale powered in to the box from a short corner, found Roberts and the Swansea right-back claimed his second international goal to send the 400 Wales fans into wild celebrations behind the target.
Turkey face Switzerland in the Azeri capital on Sunday while Wales head to Rome as well.
