{"id":12932,"date":"2026-04-13T19:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=12932"},"modified":"2026-04-13T19:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:58:20","slug":"womens-world-cup-qualifying-rhian-wilkinson-challenges-wales-to-fill-ceri-holland-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=12932","title":{"rendered":"Women’s World Cup qualifying: Rhian Wilkinson challenges Wales to fill Ceri Holland void"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Even without Holland, as well as fellow injured players Olivia Clark and Lois Joel, Wales will start as firm favourites to claim two victories against Albania, opponents they have never previously faced.<\/p>\n

The Albanians are ranked 71st in the world \u2013 40 places below Wales \u2013 with Wilkinson spelling out the need for her team to register two victories this week to keep their Women’s World Cup qualification bid on track.<\/p>\n

Wales are top of Group B1 having begun their campaign with a draw in the Czech Republic and a comprehensive home win over Montenegro last month.<\/p>\n

The Czechs are expected to be Wales’ main rivals to win the group, with Wilkinson’s team currently leading the way on goal difference.<\/p>\n

In a competition in which nations who are level on points will initially be separated by head-to-head records, Wales’ target is to keep pace with the Czechs before they come to Cardiff for the final game of the group phase in June.<\/p>\n

The side finishing top will secure a more favourable path in World Cup play-offs later this year.<\/p>\n

“From the beginning I’ve said that the goal is to be top of the group and to try our best to win every game in front of us,” Wilkinson said.<\/p>\n

“That’s my answer for this game as well.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Even without Holland, as well as fellow injured players Olivia Clark and Lois Joel, Wales will start as firm favourites to claim two victories against Albania, opponents they have never previously faced. The Albanians are ranked 71st in the world \u2013 40 places below Wales \u2013 with Wilkinson spelling out the need for her team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}