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- By Nicole Jackson
- 14 Mar 2026
The team has won eight of their recent 16 matches under coach Craig Bellamy
The team's focus are squarely on the upcoming World Cup play-off draw as they await discovering their semi-final and potential final opponents.
After ended as runners-up in their qualification pool following a commanding 7-1 triumph over North Macedonia – their biggest success since 1978 – Wales will host the semi-final encounter on their own turf.
They will play against either Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo or Republic of Ireland in that fixture on 26 March.
Ex- Wales forward Rob Earnshaw believes the Dragons will relish a tie against any team following their most recent performance at Cardiff City Stadium.
"I'm familiar with Craig Bellamy, I played with him and his mentality is 'bring on whoever, it doesn't matter'," Earnshaw commented.
"A lot of fans were wondering last night, 'should we really want Ireland as it's that local atmosphere?'. In my view many supporters didn't. But for me, that would be incredible.
"So it's one of those, yes, we're ready for the Kosovans or Bosnia and the Albanians are not bad and Republic of Ireland, naturally, they're a strong team so it will be difficult.
"But you just feel that we're prepared for anybody at the moment and it doesn't matter, and much of that is because of Craig Bellamy."
Wales sit 34th in the FIFA rankings, with the Albanian team sixty-first, Ireland 62nd, Bosnia seventy-fifth and the Kosovan side 84th.
The Albanian national team enjoyed a impressive qualification campaign, with their sole losses coming at the hands of their group winners England, who claimed full points without conceding a solitary goal.
Burnley's Armando Broja and Lazio's Elseid Hysaj are among the Albanian squad's more notable names, although it was ex- Inter Milan, Barcelona and Watford striker Rey Manaj who topped their scoring tally in qualifying with three goals.
Notably, Albania have not yet qualified for a World Cup, though they featured at the 2016 European Championship and Euro 2024, failing to advance to the last 16 on both times.
As Slovenia and Sweden endured difficult runs, with both not managing to win a qualification match, Group B was a straight shootout between Switzerland and the Kosovan team.
The Swiss finished the six-match campaign three points ahead of the Kosovans, whose one loss came at the hands of the group winners.
The Kosovan squad include former Manchester City keeper Arijanet Muric and La Liga's Vedat Muriqi – his country's all-time top scorer – in a team aiming for a first international competition appearance.
They have never played Wales.
Bosnia-Herzegovina lost just once in the qualifiers, and earned a points more than the Welsh managed in their 8 games, but nonetheless ended two points adrift of their group winners Austria.
They were a quarter of an hour away from clinching a spot at the World Cup, but Michael Gregoritsch's equaliser for the Austrians meant the teams drew in the last game of qualification and Ralf Rangnick's team topped the group.
The Welsh have failed to defeat the Bosnians in 4 matches but experienced a memorable loss against Zmajevi as they qualified for Euro 2016 under Chris Coleman despite losing.
Being his country's all-time leading scorer and most-capped player, ex- Manchester City forward Edin Dzeko, now at Fiorentina, is undoubtedly Bosnia-Herzegovina's key player.
The veteran was his team's leading goalscorer in the qualifiers with 5 goals.
Lastly, we have Ireland.
Having secured only a single point from their opening 3 matches, Heimir Hallgrímsson's side surged into the play-offs with back-to-back wins against Armenia, Portugal and Hungary.
Troy Parrott scored the two goals against Euro 2016 winners Portugal before bagging a hat-trick – with the final goal coming in the 96th minute – as the Republic of Ireland stunned Hungary to secure second place in Group F in dramatic style.
Key player Seamus Coleman had a vital role in his team's revival while Brentford goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher has secured the starting position his to keep.
Ireland are without a win in their past four meetings with Wales, losing 3 of those, although James McClean broke the hearts of the Welsh fans as Martin O'Neill's team won a crucial World Cup qualifying match at Cardiff City Stadium in 2017.
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