Wales v Albania: Gamers given historical past lesson earlier than Ladies’s World Cup semi-final second leg

Wales have reached the play-off phases of qualification for a serious match for less than the third time within the historical past of the ladies’s nationwide facet.

Their first try, in qualifying for the 2023 World Cup, resulted in agony.

Gemma Grainger’s workforce beat Bosnia-Herzgovina on the semi-final stage earlier than – regardless of taking an early lead – shedding out to a aim late in further time of the final in Switzerland.

Two years later, it was a wholly completely different story as Wales overcame Slovakia and the Republic of Ireland to succeed in Euro 2025, the primary girls’s main match within the nation’s historical past.

Thanks partly to a prolonged damage listing, James is one in every of solely 5 gamers who started the decisive game in Dublin 22 months in the past who’re in rivalry to start out towards Albania.

The 146-cap Seattle Reign midfielder was additionally a part of the facet left heartbroken by that late defeat in Zurich in October 2022.

“[They were] two very completely different emotions after each video games,” James stated.

“The feeling that we had out in Switzerland, going so shut in further time and narrowly lacking out, it fuelled us for Dublin.

“There’s a giant group of us that skilled that and at first of this camp we made certain the entire group was conscious of the way it feels to be on each ends of that.”