TOUGH DRAW FOR WALES

Wales have recently been given a tough qualifying group for the Euro 2016. They will be facing teams like France, Belgium, and Bosnia – who have qualified for the World Cup 2014 – in this qualifying group.

Even though there are minnows like Andorra, many reckon that Wales are unlikely to qualify for the European Championships due to the tough nature of the group. Wales manager Chris Coleman, though, is confident that his team can achieve qualification simply because most of his players will be at the peak condition by the time qualifying completes.

The likes of Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bale are close to reaching their peak, while there are also several young and upcoming stars. As a result of Euro 2016 expanding to 24 teams, every group will possibly have three teams that reach the competition. According to Coleman, this gives the likes of Republic of Ireland great chance to reach the tournament itself. Ireland recently appeared at the Euro 2012, but they missed out on the World Cup 2014.

Wales have not reached a major tournament in a long time.
Coleman says that his team will not be underestimating any opponents in the group. Israel and Cyprus are the other teams in the group along with Wales. They are likely to compete for the final qualifying spot.

"There are no mugs in the group, there are no easy games but looking at it we've got to say we have a chance (of qualifying). If we finish above Israel then we've got a great chance of getting that third spot, but that's not to say we're going into it targeting third we've got to win as many games as we can because you never know. Everybody is wondering what is going to happen,” said Coleman, whose record since taking over has not been great.