HISTORY BECKONS FOR one. Heartbreak for the other. Ireland and Wales are both two games away from their first European Championships.
Their play-off final gets underway at Cardiff City Stadium tonight [KO 7.30pm, live on RTÉ 2], with qualification scores settled in Dublin next Tuesday. Having made their major tournament debut at the 2023 World Cup, Ireland are out to back it up.
They will be hell-bent on repeating their Hampden Park heroics of two years ago, and landing on the right side of history. Wales, on the other hand, are dreaming of reaching their first major tournament, having agonisingly missed out on the last World Cup after an extra-time play-off defeat. There’s a beautiful symmetry to it all.
These Celtic cousins met in the first-ever women’s international for both countries in 1973. Half a century on, destiny calls for one. On Election Day back home, many will give Eileen Gleeson’s side the vote of confidence to prevail, but an extremely tight tie awaits.
A record home crowd does too, with over 16,000 tickets sold. : Ireland will be marginally favoured given their five-place advantage in the Fifa World Rankings (24th and 29th), recent League A status and major tournament experience. Although hard to read into, Wales did win 2-0 when the sides met in a friendly at Tallaght Stadium in February.
Manager Rhian Wilkinson, in turn, sees Ireland as “absolutely beatable,” to which Gleeson responded: “I’m not really focused on anything that Rhian has to s.