Ashley Williams Considered Retiring From Wales Duty After Failure to Qualify for the World Cup

Wales and Everton defender Ashley Williams has revealed he thought about retiring from international duty after Wales failed to qualify for this summer's World Cup in Russia.

The Wales captain played in a 6-0 win against China on Thursday afternoon in the China Cup, and speaking ahead of the game, revealed that the disappointment of missing out on the World Cup made him think about his future.

"It was just so disappointing missing out on that [the World Cup] that I had to think about retirement,'' he told the media (via ESPN). "I spoke to the people closest to me, I didn't want to retire or anything like that.

"But I felt like it was something that I should've thought about and seen where I was at with club and international football and life in general. I did give that a thought, but then I decided I wanted to keep doing it anyway.''

1 - Ryan Giggs, who made 64 appearances and scored 12 goals for Wales, has just four games to his name as a manager, assuming the caretaker role at Man Utd at the back end of the 2013-14 season (W2 D1 L1). Beginnings. pic.twitter.com/wZ1sVSbunt
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) March 22, 2018

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Wales appointed Ryan Giggs as manager in January following the departure of Chris Coleman, and Williams met with his new manager earlier in the month before joining up with his national teammates this week.

"The gaffer [Giggs] wanted to know my thoughts on certain things and told me his view about going forward,'' he said. "So it was an important thing to do before the camp, to help the gaffer to come into a group that's been together for so long.

"As the captain, it's my job to help knit that together I suppose. It's a new start and we want to do that by playing to our best and to our full potential.

"We've made it clear we want to win this tournament and, as strong as the opponents are, when else do you get to play an international tournament without so many teams in and with a chance to win a cup? It would be great for us to take it back to Wales.''