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The team's sights are squarely on Thursday's World Cup playoff draw as they await learning their semifinal and possible final challengers.

Having ended second in their qualifying pool following a commanding 7-1 win over North Macedonia – their biggest win since 1978 – Wales will host the semi-final encounter on their own turf.

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

Former Wales forward Rob Earnshaw thinks the Welsh squad will welcome a tie against any opponent after their most recent performance at Cardiff City Stadium.

"I'm familiar with Craig Bellamy, we were teammates with him and his mentality is 'give us whoever, we're ready'," Earnshaw stated.

"Many fans were wondering last night, 'do we actually want Ireland because of that local atmosphere?'. I think a number of supporters were hesitant. But for me, that could be amazing.

"So it's that type of situation, indeed, we'll take the Kosovans or the Bosnians and Albania are competitive and Ireland, of course, they're a very good team so they'll be challenging.

"But you just feel that we'll take anybody right now and it doesn't matter, and a lot of that is down to Craig Bellamy."

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The Welsh squad are placed thirty-fourth in the FIFA rankings, with Albania sixty-first, Republic of Ireland 62nd, Bosnia-Herzegovina seventy-fifth and the Kosovan side 84th.

The Albanian national team had a impressive qualification campaign, with their only losses suffered at the hands of their group winners England, who claimed maximum points without conceding a single goal.

Burnley's Armando Broja and Lazio's Elseid Hysaj are among the Red and Blacks's prominent players, though it was former Inter Milan, Barcelona and Watford forward Rey Manaj who led their scoring tally in the qualifiers with three goals.

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

As Slovenia and Sweden had torrid campaigns, with each not managing to win a qualification match, their group was a straight shootout between Switzerland and the Kosovan team.

The Swiss finished the six-game campaign 3 points ahead of Kosovo, whose single loss came at the hands of the group winners.

The Kosovan squad feature ex- Manchester City keeper Arijanet Muric and La Liga's Vedat Muriqi – his country's all-time leading goalscorer – in a team targeting a first international competition appearance.

They have not yet played Wales.

Bosnia were defeated only one time in qualifying, and claimed a point more than Wales managed in their eight games, but still ended two points behind of their group winners Austria.

They were a quarter of an hour away from securing a place at the finals, but Michael Gregoritsch's leveler for the Austrians ensured the pair tied in the last game of qualification and Ralf Rangnick's team topped the pool.

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

Being his nation's all-time top goalscorer and record appearance player, former Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko, now at Fiorentina, is undoubtedly Bosnia-Herzegovina's star player.

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

And finally, we have Republic of Ireland.

Having taken only a single point from their first 3 qualifiers, Heimir Hallgrímsson's side surged into the play-offs with successive wins against Armenia, Portugal and Hungary.

Troy Parrott scored the two goals against Euro 2016 winners Portugal before scoring a triple – with the final goal arriving in the 96th minute – as the Republic of Ireland surprised Hungary to take second place in their group in thrilling style.

Talisman Seamus Coleman had a vital role in his team's revival while Premier League keeper Caoimhin Kelleher has made the starting position his to keep.

The Republic of Ireland are without a win in their past four encounters with Wales, defeated in three of those, though James McClean broke the hearts of the Red Wall as Martin O'Neill's team won a decisive World Cup qualifying match at Cardiff City Stadium in 2017.