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The team's sights are firmly on Thursday's World Cup play-off fixture as they prepare for learning their semi-final and potential final opponents.

After finished as runners-up in their qualification group following a commanding 7-1 win over North Macedonia – their biggest win since 1978 – Wales will play the semifinal encounter on their own turf.

They will face either Albania, Bosnia, the Kosovan team or Ireland in that fixture on 26 March.

Ex- Wales forward Rob Earnshaw thinks the Welsh squad will embrace a tie against any opponent following their latest result at Cardiff City Stadium.

"I know Craig Bellamy, we were teammates with him and his mentality is 'bring on whoever, it doesn't matter'," Earnshaw stated.

"Many fans were asking last night, 'should we really want Republic of Ireland because of that derby feel?'. In my view a number of people were hesitant. But personally, that could be incredible.

"So it's one of those, indeed, we'll take Kosovo or Bosnia and the Albanians are competitive and Ireland, naturally, they're a capable team so it will be difficult.

"But the sense is that we'll take anybody at the moment and we're confident, and much of that is because of Craig Bellamy."

Potential Play-off Semi-final Opponents Evaluated

The Welsh squad are placed 34th in the FIFA rankings, with Albania 61st, Republic of Ireland 62nd, Bosnia 75th and the Kosovan side eighty-fourth.

Albania had a solid qualifying campaign, with their only defeats coming at the hands of their group winners England, who secured maximum points without conceding a single goal.

The Premier League's Armando Broja and the Serie A side's Elseid Hysaj are part of the Albanian squad's prominent names, although it was former Inter Milan, Barcelona and Watford striker Rey Manaj who topped their goal tally in the qualifiers with 3 goals.

Notably, Albania have not yet earned a spot for a World Cup, although they featured at Euro 2016 and Euro 2024, failing to reach the knockout stages on each times.

While Slovenia and Sweden had torrid runs, with each not managing to win a qualification match, their group was a straight shootout between Switzerland and Kosovo.

The Swiss ended the six-match campaign three points ahead of Kosovo, whose single loss was at the hands of the group winners.

The Kosovan squad include former Manchester City goalkeeper Arijanet Muric and Mallorca's Vedat Muriqi – his nation's all-time top scorer – in a team aiming for a first international competition appearance.

They have not yet played Wales.

Bosnia were defeated only one time in the qualifiers, and earned a point additional than the Welsh achieved in their eight games, but still finished 2 points adrift of Group H winners Austria.

They were a quarter of an hour away from clinching a place at the finals, but Michael Gregoritsch's equaliser for the Austrians ensured the teams drew in the last game of qualifying and Ralf Rangnick's team topped the pool.

Wales have failed to beat the Bosnians in four attempts but experienced a memorable loss against the Dragons as they qualified for the 2016 European Championship under Chris Coleman despite the defeat.

Being his country's historic leading scorer and record appearance player, former Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko, now at Fiorentina, is unquestionably Bosnia-Herzegovina's star player.

The veteran was his team's top scorer in qualifying with 5 goals.

Lastly, we have Republic of Ireland.

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

Troy Parrott netted the two goals against Euro 2016 winners Portugal before bagging a triple – with the final goal coming in the 96th minute – as the Irish surprised Hungary to secure second place in their group in dramatic fashion.

Key player Seamus Coleman had a crucial role in his side's resurgence while Premier League keeper Caoimhin Kelleher has made the number one position his to keep.

Ireland are without a win in their last 4 meetings with Wales, losing 3 of those, though James McClean broke the hopes of the Red Wall as Martin O'Neill's team won a decisive World Cup qualifier at Cardiff City Stadium in 2017.