Wales ‘relaxed and prepared’ for Euro 2024 play off semi
The countdown is on for the semi finals of the Euro twenty twenty four play offs when Wales will take on Finland in Cardiff. Welsh manager Rob Page has said his team are confident and relaxed, but know the threat Finland can bring. We hear from the man in charge about preparations for another massive game for Wales in the capital.
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00:00 Well of course, not just for me, for the players, they are the ones who worked so hard for it,
00:05 the staff, but the supporters, you know, it's fantastic. It is that transition, it is that
00:12 transition. What I mean by that is we qualified in 2016 against all the odds, got the semi-finals,
00:16 but because of the success of that has enabled us to invest the money and give us the opportunity
00:21 to qualify for the next Euros, which is what we did. Again, work in progress, we qualified
00:28 against all the odds for a World Cup. Disappointed when we got there, but again, it's stepping
00:32 stones. We've gone forward two, back one.
00:35 Wales have beaten a few playoffs before and none were ever as big as the last time around
00:39 when Wales needed to beat Austria and then Ukraine to qualify for the World Cup. In those
00:43 games Gareth Bale was the star man and shone to help us qualify. This time around, without
00:49 Bale, Ben Davies is still confident in the players that we have.
00:53 It's different times, I guess. We don't have Gareth Bale this time, that's obviously a
01:00 big loss for Wales. He's probably our greatest ever player. It's different, but that doesn't
01:05 mean that there's any different feeling within the camp. We've got a very motivated group,
01:11 boys that have been there before, boys that have experience and boys who are playing at
01:15 the top of their game. We're more than confident in the squad that we've got.
01:23 Wales are often the underdogs and usually play better when we're up against it. This
01:27 time against Finland at home though, we're arguably the favourites. That can put pressure
01:30 on a team, but Rob Page says that Finland are a good, solid team and Wales will need
01:35 to be at their best if they're to come away with a win.
01:39 We know they're going to be a big physical team and they will pose a threat. The front
01:43 three are very good, they're working really well together, so they will be a threat. And
01:46 they're here for a reason because they're a good team, so we're going to have to be
01:48 at it. I said earlier, irrespective of who we're playing against, if we bring our A game
01:54 up, we know we can play and I'm confident that we can take care of ourselves.
01:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]