ByGareth VincentBBC Sport Wales<\/p>\n
Carrie Jones says Wales' players are grateful to have Jess Fishlock in the dressing room \u2013 if not on the pitch \u2013 as they head into a new Women's World Cup qualifying campaign.<\/p>\n
Wales start their bid to reach the 2027 tournament in Brazil when they face the Czech Republic in Uherske Hradiste on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Rhian Wilkinson's team will have to cope without Wales' most-capped footballer and all-time leading goalscorer after Fishlock retired from international football last October.<\/p>\n
But Fishlock is part of Wales' preparations as a technical assistant to head coach Wilkinson \u2013 and midfielder Jones believes she has a "hugely important" role to play.<\/p>\n
"Jess staying on as a coach gives huge experience for us as a team – the player that she is and the experiences that she holds," Jones said.<\/p>\n
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"Even as a player, she was always coaching and I was always trying to learn off her and she's even more that way as a coach – always coaching, always trying to give those extra details.<\/p>\n
"I think it says a lot about her that she's wanting to stay involved and I think we're all really grateful as a team that she is involved."<\/p>\n
Fishlock has been working with her now former team-mates this week and will travel for what is a testing opening fixture in Group B1.<\/p>\n
The Czech Republic have never qualified for a women's major tournament, but are ranked 31st in the world by Fifa, one place higher than Wales.<\/p>\n
Fishlock will leave the Wales squad after Tuesday's game in order to rejoin Seattle Reign's preparations for the new National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) season.<\/p>\n
Wilkinson's players, meanwhile, will return home for a second qualifier against Montenegro in Llanelli on Saturday, 7 March.<\/p>\n
Czech Republic v Wales<\/strong><\/p>\n Women's World Cup qualifying<\/p>\n Tuesday, 3 March at 17:30 GMT<\/p>\n City Stadium, Uherske Hradiste<\/p>\n Watch on iPlayer<\/a>Listen on Sounds<\/a><\/p>\n Watch live on BBC Two Wales and iPlayer from 17:15 GMT; radio commentary on BBC Sounds via BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru; text commentary and match highlights on BBC Sport website and app.<\/p>\n Having reached Euro 2025, the first major women's tournament in the nation's history, Wales' next target is to reach a first World Cup.<\/p>\n However, the path to qualification is not simple, with no automatic route available to Wales because they are not in League A.<\/p>\n Assuming they do not finish bottom of a group which also features Albania, Wales will face play-offs late in 2026.<\/p>\n Should Wales finish top of the group, their first-round play-off would be against a side who finish second or third in a League B pool.<\/p>\n But if Wilkinson's team finish second or third, they would face a side who finish in fourth place in League A or a Group B winner.<\/p>\n The second round of the play-offs is seeded and should Wales get that far, they would be likely to face League A opposition.<\/p>\n Even a win at that stage may not mean Wales' job is done, because the lowest-ranked of the eight European sides who get through the play-offs will go into inter-confederation play-offs in February 2027. Wales could conceivably be that side.<\/p>\n For the moment, Jones says, Wales' focus is on making a good start in the group \u2013 and they begin with confidence having beaten Switzerland in their most recent international to end a 12-game winless run.<\/p>\n "As a footballer in general to not win for such a long time, I think you take responsibility for that and it can hurt," said Jones, who plays her club football for Swedish side IFK Norrkoping.<\/p>\n "We always had faith and we knew last year was a challenging year with the opposition we faced. But I think the win against Switzerland definitely gave us some confidence going into this campaign."<\/p>\n Wales 'grateful' to have Fishlock on boardImage source, FAWImage caption, Jess Fishlock called time on her Wales career last October but has signed a new one-year deal with club side Seattle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The start of a long route to the World Cup<\/h2>\n
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