"We have nothing to fear": Wilkinson's Wales ready to prove people wrong at Euro 2025
Squad announcement at the top of Yr Wyddfa typifies her side's gutsy run to Switzerland
From Yr Wyddfa
It’s 7:15am on a warm Thursday morning in north Wales and a gaggle of excited journalists gather at the bottom of Yr Wyddfa.
As everyone huddles onto a train to head up to the summit, the noise levels rise, and so does anticipation at what is an historic event in Welsh football history.
Halfway up the mountain already is manager Rhian Wilkinson. The Canadian elected to walk all the way up and spent the morning away from the hustle and bustle, instead choosing to immerse herself in a world of tranquillity.
Wales’ highest peak holds a special place in Wilkinson’s heart, a symbol of memories and stories.
“This is a special mountain for my family”, says Wilkinson. “My parents had their honeymoon up here, but we also used to come here as kids. When my father died, we had a little ceremony up here, and he used to make me visualise as a kid which drove me wild!”
Visualisation, however, has become a key theme in this Wilkinson era. From the moment she stepped foot inside FA Wales HQ, she detailed a roadmap for her players, which of course came in the shape of a mountain.
Wilkinson gave an insight into Wales’ psychological journey on Thursday: “The mountain we have used as a theme throughout this campaign. It was always going to be an uphill battle for us. It’s the challenge of scaling steeper parts and then levelling off.
“We have used Yr Wyddfa as an image throughout this campaign, and as we move towards the Euros, we’ve started talking more about the summit, the Everest part of our journey.
“Everything is impossible until it isn’t. We have to be able to tell the story of it, to picture it, to feel it, and it’s a perfect visual for this team.”
That Everest summit is getting clearer by the day now, especially after Wilkinson named her squad for Euro 2025.
There’s a welcome return for Sophie Ingle, who hasn’t played a single minute of football since suffering an ACL injury in August 2024.
Jess Fishlock, Ceri Holland and Angharad James also made the squad, while the 23-player roster also features plenty of youth in the shape of Carrie Jones, Esther Morgan and Safia Middleton-Patel.
It’s a squad that has a lot of strength, but it’s also a squad that has had its fair share of heartbreaks.
Defeat to England meant missing out on the 2019 World Cup, a draw against Northern Ireland denied them a spot at Euro 2022, and a goal conceded in the 120th minute of a playoff made sure they didn’t qualify for the 2023 World Cup. This was a Wales team that at one point felt cursed.
Even when Wilkinson arrived in 2024, it wasn’t long before she got a sense of the trauma that this group had been through - but she wanted to change the narrative.
“The players must have had a conversation at some point, and even some of the staff”, she says. “They had gotten so close so many times. My job was to get qualification, and we weren’t hiding from it”.
The failures of the past had lived long with the team, according to Wilkinson. “Straight away you have conversations with the players, and once you get to know them, then the stories start coming out about how close they have got and feeling like it wasn’t meant to be.
“That’s when I realised, we needed to support them to help on the mental side of the game. It’s not a physical thing, it’s not a football thing, it’s a mental block. What we talked about was that the past is the past. It’s gone. I wasn’t their manager and it’s not the same opposition.
“Bringing in the past is helpful when it’s helpful and it’s really detrimental when it’s not. You can’t just forget about the past, but you can’t bring that baggage forward. But that is easier said than done.”
It’s a tall order to remove the “cursed” tag away from a team but Wilkinson set out to try and find the best person for the job, and boy did she find that in Kate Green, a sports performance psychologist.
“I brought in Kate Green, who had trained under Ceri Evans who was the mental performance coach for the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, when they finally won the World Cup on home soil. We did a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure this group was as confident as possible.”
The All Blacks are famed for their resilience, their skill, but more importantly, the way they can mentally handle any situation thrown their way. The fact Wales have someone who has been part of that system makes them a very unique prospect.
And that mindset will certainly favour them heading into games against three teams ranked in the top eleven of the Fifa rankings.
Wales head to Switzerland as the lowest-ranked side in the entire competition and, naturally, fans outside of the country don’t think Wilkinson’s side will be able to do much.
However, the Canadian says the underdog tag suits Wales down to the ground and that it’s their opponents who will have everything to lose against them.
“I don’t think we can shy away from the fact that we are not going to be a team that people consider the top seed. You look at our group and teams will look at us and think it’s going to be three points. That’s how we will be viewed. We can’t shy away from who we are as a country.
“We’re small and at our first major tournament but equally that is a powerful thing. We have nothing to fear and that is powerful. When England play us, all the expectation is on them. France, the Netherlands, they all come into games against us with a burden.
“The worst-case scenario is that we lose but we will be ok. We will give it everything we have and that’s the only thing I can ask of them, myself, and my staff.”
But the biggest advantage Wales will have behind them is the Red Wall.
Cymru fans have never seen their women’s team on an international stage and they are not wasting time in wanting to witness history, with Wales set to be the third-best supported side in the competition.
With a vociferous crowd roaring them on, Wilkinson firmly believes that her side can stand up to the biggest of teams.
“The fans will show up in numbers and make a lot of noise. To hear that Red Wall, that voice, that anthem, particularly when there’s a lull in the game is special. Wales has something that not many other countries do.”
Wales squad:
Goalkeepers: Olivia Clark (Leicester City), Safia Middleton-Patel (Manchester United), Poppy Soper (free agent)
Defenders: Charlie Estcourt (DC Power), Gemma Evans (Liverpool), Josie Green (Crystal Palace), Hayley Ladd (Everton), Esther Morgan (Sheffield United), Ella Powell (Bristol City), Rhiannon Roberts (Real Betis), Lily Woodham (Seattle Reign)
Midfielders: Jess Fishlock (Seattle Reign), Alice Griffiths (unattached), Ceri Holland (Liverpool), Sophie Ingle (free agent), Angharad James (Seattle Reign), Lois Joel (Newcastle United), Rachel Rowe (Southampton)
Forwards: Kayleigh Barton (free agent), Hannah Cain (Leicester City), Elise Hughes (Crystal Palace), Carrie Jones (IKF Norrkoping), Ffion Morgan (Bristol City).
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