Wales are vying for promotion to UEFA Nations League A as they take on Iceland in the final game of their 2024 Nations League campaign.
- Date: 19/11/2024
- Kick-off time: 19:45
- Location: Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff
Wales are currently sit 2nd in UEFA Nations League B, Group 4 with nine points from five games. Wales entered this campaign under the guidance of a new manager in the shape of Craig Bellamy following the departure of Rob Page after their failure to qualify for Euro 2024, and the opening few games of Bellamy’s tenure have been overwhelmingly positive.
Wales are in a tough position in terms of talent right now with the majority of their successful Euro 2016 side having aged out, but Bellamy looks to have galvanised the available talent and seems to have some fresh ideas around how best to maximise the squad.
Wales are unbeaten in this qualification process but the caveat is that they’ve only won one of their five games, so they’ll really want to put a positive stamp on this Nations League campaign by claiming three points here.
There are some decent players coming through the Welsh system with the likes of Lewis Koumas starting to make a mark in senior football, so there is a hope that the upcoming generation of Welsh players can once again make Wales competitive.
With the likes of Joe Rodon, Ethan Ampadu, Jordan James and Brennan Johnson, Wales already have a good young spine to their team, so they only need a few more faces to make a competitive outfit.
Turkey are currently top of Group 4 and they lead Wales by two points, so Wales need to win and hope Turkey drop points against Montenegro in order to claim automatic promotion. However, if they lose this game then they’ll finish in 3rd place, and therefore will need to contest a relegation playoff.
Iceland are currently 3rd in Group 4 with seven points from five games. Iceland have had a relatively positive Nations League campaign as they look to rebuild from a disappointing last cycle. Iceland failed to qualify for Euro 2024, claiming only ten points from ten games in their group, finishing below Luxembourg.
Manager Åge Fridtjof Hareide took the reigns in April 2023 and has largely done a good job since taking over, with most of the team’s losses coming against very highly established teams. The team, though, is largely experiencing a lull in talent following the golden era of 2016-2018, with few established players playing in top leagues in Europe.
20-year-old forward Orri Óskarsson (of Real Sociedad) is a fine prospect so he offers some real hope for the future, but they need to try and source some more players from their youth system if they are to qualify for tournaments in the future.
Winning this game would be a huge step in their development and would mean they secure a playoff for promotion to Nations League A, so there’s a considerable amount riding on this game for them.
If they could manage to clinch promotion to League A, then they would likely get a more favourable seeding for the World Cup qualification process, which would be gargantuan for the Nordic side.
Wales is a tough place to go at the best of times but the Welsh are missing a couple of key players, so they should see this is a huge opportunity to claim a giant win.
