
""I'm very excited and actually quite happy with the draw," Bellamy said. "How I look at this group is to stay in this group. We've dipped between A and B and in the qualifying campaigns we are second. How do we get to be number one so we're competing for the number one spot? "If we can stay in League A it will give us a better opportunity of being a number one seeded team that goes into qualifiers, and able to stay at number one and go straight to a tournament and not in the play-offs anymore.""
""Wales are a national team I know very well and are close to my heart," said Martinez, who led Portugal to their second Nations League title a year ago. "I know how they work, I know the passion and how much it means to them to represent the national team so the games with Wales will be really open""
Wales have been drawn with Portugal, Denmark and Norway in UEFA Nations League A. The team aims to remain in League A to improve qualifying seeding and pursue automatic tournament qualification instead of relying on play-offs. A World Cup play-off semi-final against Bosnia on 26 March is the immediate priority. The Portugal match will test Wales' ability to maintain possession and intensity shown in the qualifying campaign. Portugal won the Nations League last year under Roberto Martinez, and those matches are expected to be open encounters.
Read at www.bbc.com
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