By Lucy Rees
Wales begin their Women’s World Cup campaign tonight where they take on Kazakhstan at Parc Y Scarlets with hopes of qualification for the event in New Zealand and Australia in 2023.
This will be new manager Gemma Grainger’s first competitive game with the side after being appointed at the beginning of the year.
The new boss is determined to take Wales where they have never been before – to a major tournament finals – and said: “The margins are fine, we’ve seen that in the last European Championship campaign with this group of players.
“We’ve got some fantastic foundations, we’re building on them and then we’re going to take everything to the next level.
“We’re going to close those margins. That is the four-year plan, to continue to get better as a team.
“We want to qualify, we want to compete for that World Cup. We will learn as much as we can about ourselves in every single game and use that as momentum. We will be taking it a game at a time. That’ll be our mentality throughout.”
🎵 | Rachel Rowe has picked the songs that will be played pre-match at @Cymru‘s FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan in Llanelli tomorrow night.
Check out her tunes in the Match Hub 👇#BeFootball | #TogetherStronger
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🎟 https://t.co/JXQ7yvBZNM— FA WALES (@FAWales) September 16, 2021
Fans will be welcomed back to Llanelli and the ‘Red Wall’ will hopefully be alive as the FAW are expecting some decent numbers.
Grainger added: “I went to the Wales men’s game with Estonia, witnessed 21,000 fans singing the anthem in the stadium, and I can honestly say I’ve never experienced a feeling like that in a stadium.
“It was special and it excites me, the pride and the passion the fans have in the Red Wall. I’m excited to have them at the game because they’ll play a huge part in our success.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting such a long time for this. It is going to be so nice to have the fans in the stadium but also our friends and family.”
Grainger has a full squad to choose from with Morgan Rogers being called up to the squad.
Wales’ new campaign begins with the same profile as the men, the squad are now based at the Vale Resort, like their male peers.
Skipper Sophie Ingle said: “It always helps. We have the same facilities as the men, the hotel is great, the training pitch is on-site and it’s just a really nice environment to be around.
“The men are here, so why can’t the women be here? The FAW have fully supported that and have pushed that for us which is amazing for the senior team.”
After taking on Kazakhstan tonight, Wales face Estonia on Tuesday.
Ingle added: “They are two teams that are ranked below us but we all fully respect their strengths within their squad. We have to focus on ourselves and we should be expecting to get two wins over the next week.”
Speaking about the last time the team faced Kazakhstan, when Wales beat them 1-0 in a World Cup qualifier in 2017, Ingle added: “They set off into a low-block and as you know, it’s always tough against a low-block to create things when they’ve got 11 bodies behind the ball.
“We’ve worked on things like that in training and if that is the case, we can create different overloads and hopefully get a lot of shots on goal.”
| Women’s World Cup qualifier: Wales v Kazakhstan |
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| Venue: Parc y Scarlets, Llanelli Date: Friday, 17 September Kick-off: 19:15 BST |