The Welsh team Ready to Face Anyone in World Cup Playoff Draw

The team's focus are squarely on Thursday's World Cup play-off draw as they prepare for learning their semifinal and potential final rivals.

Having ended as runners-up in their qualifying pool thanks to a dominant 7-1 triumph over North Macedonia – their biggest success since 1978 – Wales will play the semifinal match on home soil.

They will play against either the Albanian side, Bosnia, the Kosovan team or Ireland in that match on 26 March.

Ex- Wales forward Rob Earnshaw believes the Dragons will relish a match against whichever opponent after their most recent performance at Cardiff City Stadium.

"I'm familiar with Craig Bellamy, I played with him and his approach is 'give us whoever, it doesn't matter'," Earnshaw stated.

"Many supporters were asking recently, 'do we really want Republic of Ireland as it's that local atmosphere?'. I think many people didn't. But personally, that would be amazing.

"So it's one of those, indeed, we're ready for the Kosovans or Bosnia and Albania are decent and Ireland, of course, they are a very good team so they'll be difficult.

"However you just feel that we'll take anyone at the moment and it doesn't matter, and a lot of that is because of Craig Bellamy."

Potential Playoff Semi-final Rivals Evaluated

Wales are placed 34th in the FIFA standings, with Albania sixty-first, Republic of Ireland sixty-second, Bosnia 75th and the Kosovan side 84th.

Albania had a strong qualifying run, with their only defeats suffered at the hands of Group K winners England, who secured maximum points without conceding a single goal.

Burnley's Armando Broja and Lazio's Elseid Hysaj are among the Red and Blacks's prominent names, although it was ex- Inter Milan, Barcelona and Watford striker Rey Manaj who led their scoring tally in the qualifiers with 3 goals.

Importantly, Albania have never earned a spot for a FIFA World Cup, although they featured at the 2016 European Championship and the 2024 Euros, failing to reach the last 16 on each occasions.

While Slovenia and Sweden endured poor runs, with each failing to win a qualifying match, their group was a direct battle between Switzerland and Kosovo.

The Swiss ended the six-game campaign 3 points clear of Kosovo, whose one defeat was at the hands of the pool winners.

Kosovo feature ex- Manchester City keeper Arijanet Muric and Mallorca's Vedat Muriqi – his nation's historic top scorer – in a team aiming for a maiden major tournament appearance.

They have not yet played the Welsh team.

Bosnia lost just once in qualifying, and earned a points additional than the Welsh achieved in their eight games, but nonetheless ended two points behind of their group winners Austria.

They were 13 minutes away from clinching a place at the finals, but Michael Gregoritsch's equaliser for the Austrians meant the teams tied in the last game of qualifying and Ralf Rangnick's team won the group.

Wales have not managed to defeat the Bosnians in 4 attempts but did have a memorable loss against the Dragons as they earned qualification for Euro 2016 under Chris Coleman even after losing.

As his country's all-time leading scorer and most-capped player, ex- Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko, currently with Fiorentina, is undoubtedly Bosnia's key player.

The veteran was his team's leading goalscorer in qualifying with five goals.

Lastly, we have Ireland.

Having secured only a single point from their first 3 matches, Heimir Hallgrímsson's side stormed into the play-offs with back-to-back wins against Armenia, Portugal and Hungary.

Troy Parrott scored both 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 spot in Group F in dramatic fashion.

Talisman Seamus Coleman had a crucial role in his team's resurgence while Brentford keeper Caoimhin Kelleher has secured the starting position his to keep.

Ireland are without a win in their past four meetings with Wales, defeated in 3 of those, although James McClean shattered the hopes of the Red Wall as Martin O'Neill's team won a decisive World Cup qualifying match at Cardiff City Stadium in 2017.