Wales Under-21s ‘feel magnitude’ of crunch Czech Republic clash – Matty Jones

Matty Jones believes his Wales youngsters will create a legacy for Welsh football by qualifying for a maiden European Under-21 Championship.

Wales host the Czech Republic in their concluding qualifier on Friday within tantalising reach of making next summer’s finals in Slovakia.

They are level on points with group leaders Denmark and currently one of the best three second-placed teams in the race for a finals spot.

But Iceland and the Czech Republic have two games left to play and both could yet overtake Wales.

Permutations

“We all feel the magnitude of the game,” U21 manager Jones said ahead of the Newport clash.

“We are aware of the various permutations, but the message to the players and the preparation over the last couple of weeks is that this is about us.

“We’ve built up to this for a long time and had this sense that it was going to fall down to this final game.

“The legacy in what we can leave behind is improving our co-efficiency and benefiting the association in the future.

“As the under-17s and senior side have shown, it has improved our chances of qualifying for future tournaments when our seeding is higher.”

Suspended

Wales are without suspended Wycombe centre-back Joe Low and goalkeeper Eddie Beach, defender Owen Bevan and attacking midfielder Luke Harris are ruled out by injury.

Owen Beck and Lewis Koumas are part of Craig Bellamy’s senior squad and unavailable.

Jones said: “I feel as a team we’ve matured and grown immensely over this campaign and we deserve to be in this position.

“Two years ago it started with hope, but we had that ambition to do something and it’s turned into the self-confidence and belief that we could qualify.”