By Lucy Rees
Wales manager Gemma Grainger has warned her players Slovenia could be the dark horses of their World Cup group.
Grainger heads into a tougher World Cup qualifying match in Lendava on Friday night after two successful results last month against Kazakhstan and Estonia.
However, Slovenia could prove a far more difficult contest after they ran France close in a 3-2 defeat three weeks ago.
Grainger’s team are playing for a place at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Grainger said: “The momentum is important, but I think it’s also important not to get too carried away, we don’t need to focus on the what-ifs, we need to focus on playing on Friday after that game recovering while playing on Tuesday, and then assessing where we’re at from there.
“We planned the fixtures in terms of we wanted to have those fixtures in September to get us off to that start.
“And it’s all well, and good, you know, planning the fixtures, but getting off to the start, I think that’s where the players need to take a huge amount of credit in terms of delivering the game plan on Friday.
“Our plan is to see how well we can deliver our game plan, because, with the strengths that we have in the players that we have, we know we can get a successful performance.”
Last month, Wales came away with 6-0 and 1-0 wins over Kazakhstan and Estonia – to leave them second in Group I – and are hoping to build on those victories.
“In the September window the nerves were probably there because we knew our potential but we had not quite delivered that in a qualification game,” the manager added.
“Now we’ve got those two wins under our belt we go into the third game knowing what we’re capable of, and what team we want to be moving forward.”
Friday’s game will be the team’s 200th official match, and to celebrate the achievement the FAW made the squad announcement extra special by asking previous players to club together for the announcement.
FOR THEM – IDDYN NHW ❤️️🏴
A special cyhoeddiad carfan featuring former Cymru internationals.
We will play our 200th match in the upcoming @FIFAWWC qualifiers.#BeFootball | #TogetherStronger pic.twitter.com/ueptsEz8eu
— Wales 🏴 (@Cymru) October 14, 2021
Last month, Slovenia gave top of the table France quite the run for their money in a tough match. France came away with a 3-2 victory but it proved that Slovenia deserve more credit than they receive.
Grainger added: “I wasn’t surprised, I’ve definitely watched a lot of Slovenia, obviously.
“But I’ve also been a member of clubs and coaching teams that played Slovenia in the past.
“So another really strong nation in terms of their playing identity, and there has been a number combination, I would say the kind of last three or four years and really competitive.
“I think that it’s a great challenge for us, and something that you know, when we played our friendly games, we played Canada, we played Denmark, we played Scotland because we wanted to play against high-rank oppositions in preparation for this campaign.
“I think our mentality and our preparation means that we’re really excited for this type of fixture.
“But for us, it’s about building on those two performances and wanting to compete and qualify for major tournaments.
“We’re very early in terms of our four-year journey, but the aim is to keep getting better with each passing game.
“We benchmark ourselves against teams that have qualified previously and that’s a real performance indicator for us.
“We have data around 20 different benchmarks and it gives us a real guide of how we’re travelling in the right direction.
“The stats don’t always equal three points, but it’s a real indicator of performance and gives you a better chance of getting results.”
After Friday’s match, Wales take on Estonia again but at Cardiff City Football Stadium in front of a crowd, 3,000 tickets have already been sold for what everyone hopes to be an exciting match.
Women’s World Cup qualifier: Slovenia v Wales
Venue: Športni park, Lendava Date: Friday, 22 September Kick-off: 19:15 BST
