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Wales' focus are squarely on Thursday's World Cup play-off fixture as they prepare for learning their semifinal and potential final challengers.

Having ended second in their qualification group thanks to a dominant 7-1 victory over North Macedonia – their largest success since 1978 – the side will play the semi-final match on home soil.

They will face either Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo or Republic of Ireland in that fixture on 26 March.

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

"I know Craig Bellamy, I played with him and his mindset is 'bring on whoever, it doesn't matter'," Earnshaw commented.

"A lot of people were asking recently, 'should we actually want Republic of Ireland as it's that local feel?'. In my view a number of supporters didn't. But for me, that would be amazing.

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

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

Potential Play-off Semi-final Opponents Assessed

Wales are placed thirty-fourth in the FIFA standings, with the Albanian team 61st, Republic of Ireland 62nd, Bosnia seventy-fifth and the Kosovan side eighty-fourth.

Albania enjoyed a solid qualification campaign, with their only defeats suffered at the hands of their group winners England, who claimed maximum points without conceding a solitary goal.

Burnley's Armando Broja and the Serie A side's Elseid Hysaj are among the Albanian squad's prominent players, though it was ex- Inter Milan, Barcelona and Watford striker Rey Manaj who led their goal chart in the qualifiers with three goals.

Notably, the Albanians have never earned a spot for a World Cup, although they featured at Euro 2016 and the 2024 Euros, failing to reach the knockout stages on each occasions.

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

The Switzerland ended the six-game campaign 3 points clear of the Kosovans, whose one defeat came at the hands of the pool winners.

Kosovo include former Manchester City goalkeeper Arijanet Muric and La Liga's Vedat Muriqi – his country's historic leading goalscorer – in a team aiming for a maiden major tournament appearance.

They have never played the Welsh team.

Bosnia-Herzegovina lost only one time in the qualifiers, and claimed a points additional than the Welsh achieved in their 8 games, but nonetheless ended 2 points behind of Group H winners Austria.

They were 13 minutes away from securing a place at the World Cup, but Michael Gregoritsch's leveler for the Austrians meant the teams drew in the last game of qualification and Ralf Rangnick's team won the pool.

The Welsh have failed to beat the Bosnian side in four matches but did have a unforgettable loss against Zmajevi as they qualified for the 2016 European Championship under Chris Coleman even after losing.

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

The veteran was his squad's leading goalscorer in the qualifiers with 5 goals.

Lastly, we have Republic of Ireland.

Having secured just one point from their first three qualifiers, Heimir Hallgrímsson's side stormed into the playoffs with successive wins against Armenia, Portugal and Hungary.

Troy Parrott netted both goals against Euro 2016 winners Portugal before scoring a triple – with the third goal arriving in the 96th minute – as the Republic of Ireland stunned Hungary to secure runner-up place in Group F in dramatic fashion.

Key player Seamus Coleman had a vital role in his side's resurgence while Brentford keeper Caoimhin Kelleher has made the starting position his to keep.

The Republic of Ireland are winless in their past 4 meetings with the Welsh, defeated in 3 of these, though James McClean broke the hearts of the Welsh fans as Martin O'Neill's team won a decisive World Cup qualifier at Cardiff City Stadium in 2017.