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Wales' focus are squarely on Thursday's World Cup playoff fixture as they prepare for discovering their semifinal and potential final challengers.

After ended second in their qualifying group thanks to a decisive 7-1 victory over North Macedonia – their largest win since 1978 – Wales will play the semifinal encounter on home soil.

They will face either the Albanian side, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo or Republic of Ireland in that match on 26 March.

Former Wales forward Rob Earnshaw believes the Welsh squad will welcome a match against whichever opponent following their most recent performance at Cardiff City Stadium.

"I'm familiar with Craig Bellamy, we were teammates with him and his approach is 'give us whoever, it doesn't matter'," Earnshaw commented.

"Many people were asking recently, 'should we actually want Republic of Ireland because of that local atmosphere?'. In my view many people didn't. But personally, that would be amazing.

"So it's one of those, yes, we're ready for Kosovo or the Bosnians and the Albanians are competitive and Ireland, of course, they are a strong team so they'll be difficult.

"However you just feel 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 Assessed

Wales sit thirty-fourth in the FIFA standings, with Albania sixty-first, Republic of Ireland sixty-second, Bosnia-Herzegovina seventy-fifth and the Kosovan side 84th.

Albania had a strong qualification campaign, with their sole losses suffered at the hands of Group K winners England, who secured full points without conceding a single goal.

Burnley's Armando Broja and the Serie A side's Elseid Hysaj are part of the Albanian squad's recognizable players, though it was former Inter Milan, Barcelona and Watford forward Rey Manaj who led their goal tally in the qualifiers with 3 goals.

Importantly, the Albanians have never qualified for a FIFA World Cup, although they participated at Euro 2016 and the 2024 Euros, not managing to advance to the knockout stages on each times.

While Slovenia and Sweden endured poor campaigns, with both not managing to win a qualifying match, their group was a direct battle between Switzerland and Kosovo.

The Swiss finished the six-match campaign three points ahead of Kosovo, whose one defeat was at the hands of the group winners.

Kosovo feature ex- Manchester City goalkeeper Arijanet Muric and La Liga's Vedat Muriqi – his country's historic leading goalscorer – in a squad aiming for a first major tournament appearance.

They have not yet played the Welsh team.

Bosnia-Herzegovina lost just once in qualifying, and earned a point additional than the Welsh achieved in their eight games, but nonetheless ended two points adrift of Group H winners Austria.

They were a quarter of an hour away from securing a spot at the World Cup, but Michael Gregoritsch's leveler for the Austrians ensured the pair tied in the final game of qualifying and Ralf Rangnick's team topped the group.

Wales have not managed to beat the Bosnian side in four attempts but experienced a memorable loss against the Dragons as they qualified for the 2016 European Championship under Chris Coleman even after losing.

As his nation's all-time leading scorer and most-capped player, former Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko, now at Fiorentina, is undoubtedly Bosnia-Herzegovina's standout player.

The 39-year-old was his team's leading goalscorer in qualifying with 5 goals.

Lastly, we have Republic of Ireland.

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

Troy Parrott netted the two goals against the 2016 European Championship winners Portugal before scoring a triple – with the final goal arriving in the 96th minute – as the Irish stunned Hungary to take runner-up spot in Group F in dramatic fashion.

Key player Seamus Coleman played a crucial role in his side's revival while Premier League goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher has made the number one position his own.

Ireland are winless in their last 4 meetings with the Welsh, defeated in 3 of those, though James McClean broke the hearts of the Welsh fans as Martin O'Neill's men won a crucial World Cup qualifying match at Cardiff City Stadium in 2017.