Aaron Ramsey is confident Wales can secure qualification for Euro 2016 when they travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina next month, with the midfielder believing the team are better setup to succeed away from home.
Wales could have secured their passage to next summer’s tournament, and their first since 1958, with victory over Israel in Cardiff on Sunday. Chris Coleman’s side drew 0-0 having failed to breakdown their opponents, who had five men strung across the penalty area for large periods of the match at the Cardiff City Stadium.
Wales get another chance to qualify in Zenica, the fourth-largest city in Bosnia, on 10 October. They need only a draw to do so but Ramsey feels they can go one step better and beat their Group B opponents.
“We feel we can go there and grab all three points,” said the Arsenal midfielder. “That’s the confidence in this team at the moment. Hopefully we will be able to do that and have a successful end to what has been a great campaign.
“The fans have been unbelievable home and away. They travel in their numbers and sometimes it is a bit easier playing away from home because teams are trying to attack and score, which is a bit more of an open game. We saw against Israel it can be quite difficult when a team has 10, 11 players behind the ball.
“We are disappointed not to have qualified yet but we can take positives from [Sunday’s] game. We dominated possession, created opportunities and just couldn’t quite finish one off. It was important not to lose, we have kept another clean sheet and the stats would suggest we had another good game.”
Even if the worst happens and Wales lose against Bosnia, they can still qualify by avoiding defeat to Andorra in their final group match in Cardiff three days later. Andorra are bottom of Group B having lost all eight of their qualifying matches so far.