Wales captain Aaron Ramsey is out to silence the taunting texts of Arsenal team-mate Thomas Vermaelen.
Ramsey looking forward to facing Vermaelen's Belgium
Wales captain Aaron Ramsey is out to silence the taunting texts of Arsenal team-mate Thomas Vermaelen when they face Belgium on Friday night.
Wales kick off their bid to qualify for the 2014 World Cup against a strong Belgium side at Cardiff City Stadium.
With the likes of Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany and Marouane Fellaini in their ranks, the Belgians have every right to feel confident of reaching the finals in Brazil.
But Ramsey is keen to spoil their fun - and in particular put a stop to the messages from Vermaelen.
"It has been going on for a few months now," said Ramsey.
"We all know the quality they have, a lot of their players have established themselves in the Premier League and started the season well.
"Obviously he has been giving me a bit of banter over the last few weeks, which I won't repeat, but we are looking forward to it and we are confident in our own abilities, we have some very good players in our squad as well.
"We are at home as well, with our home support behind us and hopefully that will help us get off to a good start."
Absentees
Wales are without the likes of first-team regulars Craig Bellamy, Neil Taylor and Wayne Hennessey for the group opener but manager Chris Coleman is upbeat.
Coleman said: "We can talk all day about how good Belgium are and the individual players they have got, but this is a game of football and when you go into a contest anything can happen.
"We know all about Belgium, but we can't go into the game thinking maybe if we get lots of luck we can sneak through it and go in under the radar.
"We can't have that approach and we won't have that approach.
"They are coming into our backyard, into our capital and we have good players and have to bring it on the night.
"We don't want to concern ourselves too much with how good Belgium are.
"We have got to go into it with confidence, with belief and courage and in a game of football over 90 minutes anything can happen. We know that, we have seen it before."
