Venue: Astana Arena, Astana
Date: Thursday, 4 September
Kick off: 15:00 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC One

Wales' hopes of qualifying automatically for the 2026 World Cup are on a knife edge on Thursday after the long journey to Kazakhstan.

With only the group winners sure of their place at next year's tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, Wales are second in Group J following their solitary defeat of the campaign so far, a dramatic 4-3 loss in Belgium in June.

Craig Bellamy's side are a point behind leaders North Macedonia, while Belgium are third, three points further back, but with two games in hand.

To have a realistic chance of qualifying as group winners, Wales must win all four of their remaining games and hope that Belgium slip up more than once.

Failing that, Wales will enter the play-offs in March, the same route they took to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup – their first appearance at the finals stage for 64 years.

"I'm really interested to see what happens," said Bellamy. "The travel, the pitch – it's so exciting. This is why we're here. We want to go to a major tournament.

"It's supposed to be hard. These group games are always hard, but they have to be because we're in the European stage to qualify for what we see as the major tournament.

"We've managed to earn the right three times now out of the last five tournaments, and we aren't going away. We want it to be this one. If it isn't, it's going to be the next one. We love the hardness of it. I expect a really hard game."

This is the furthest Wales' men have travelled for a qualifying match in their history, though the women's side made the 7,000-mile round trip to the same stadium, Astana Arena, in 2022.

That distance has not deterred Welsh supporters, as more than 1,000 have made the journey to Kazakhstan's capital city.

This is a huge country, the world's ninth largest by land area and spanning two continents.

But in footballing terms, Kazakhstan are minnows. They are ranked 114th in the world, 83 places below Wales.

That said, Kazakhstan provided Wales with stubborn opposition in their opening fixture of this campaign in Cardiff in March, scoring their first competitive goal since 2023 to equalise before eventually losing 3-1 to Bellamy's men.

Four Kazakh squad members were also part of the Kairat Almaty team who knocked Celtic out of Champions League qualifying last month.

"That bodes well for the future, but we're in the here and now," said Bellamy. "No matter what, it's going to be a difficult game. This is a nice challenge.

"Playing them at home in Cardiff was a good challenge as well, how they set up, how they look to counter-attack. They spent a long time without the ball and that usually breaks teams earlier than it did. We call it heart. I admired it.

"For us, do we have the quality on the day? That's the most important. Have we prepared well? Are we able to adapt? We'll have to take the game to them.

"Whatever the circumstances, we adapt. That allows you to be excited about every game."

Team news

Leeds United centre-back Joe Rodon, Coventry City full-back Jay Dasilva, Wrexham forward Nathan Broadhead and his club team-mate, goalkeeper Danny Ward, all withdrew from the Wales squad on Wednesday due to injury.

Tom King, Rhys Norrington-Davies and Joel Colwill were added as their replacements.

Cardiff City midfielder Colwill gets his first senior call-up after older brother Rubin was initially summoned by Bellamy, only to be ruled out by a knock he picked up in the Bluebirds' win over Plymouth Argyle last weekend.

Rodon, a key defensive figure for Wales, misses out despite playing the full 90 minutes as Leeds drew 0-0 with Newcastle United last Saturday, while left-back Dasilva played the full game as Coventry drew at Oxford United.

Forward Broadhead was unavailable for Wrexham's weekend win at Millwall with a calf problem, while goalkeeper Ward was expected to miss out on Wales duty after being carried off during that game.

Wales were already without Leeds' Ethan Ampadu and Burnley full-back Connor Roberts for this camp through injury, while captain Aaron Ramsey was not called up having played little club football.

But attacking midfielder Harry Wilson is available having shaken off an injury to feature for Fulham as a substitute during their Premier League defeat at Chelsea last weekend.

As well as Colwill, there are three other uncapped players hoping to make their senior Wales debuts: Cardiff's teenage defenders Ronan Kpakio and Dylan Lawlor, as well as Coventry City midfielder Kai Andrews.

Match facts

The only previous meeting between Kazakhstan and Wales was earlier this year in March, with Wales winning 3-1 at Cardiff City Stadium.

Wales have won just two of their past 14 away matches (six draws, six defeats), beating Latvia 2-0 in September 2023 and Montenegro 2-1 in September 2024.

Kazakhstan haven't won any of their past 11 home World Cup qualifying matches (four draws, seven defeats) since a 2-1 win over the Faroe Islands in September 2013.

Wales have netted 14 goals in their past five matches (three wins, one draw, one defeat), finding the target with three or more goals in four of those, including each of the past two. They have never scored three goals in three matches in a row in their entire history.

Kazakhstan have lost 13 of their past 16 matches in all competitions (two wins, one draw), with their two wins in this run coming via 2-0 victories against Curaçao and Liechtenstein in March 2025.

Wales are unbeaten in their past 28 matches against sides ranked 100th or higher in the Fifa rankings at the time of that game (24 wins, four draws) since losing 1-0 to Cyprus in November 2005, who were ranked 103rd. Their only defeat by a side as low as 114th was a 3-2 loss to Moldova in October 1994 (ranked 135th).

Sorba Thomas has created 17 chances in the current World Cup qualifying campaign, with only Vaclav Cerny and Martin Odegaard (18 each) creating more. Thomas also got two assists in Wales' 3-1 win over Kazakhstan in March.

Wilson has had a hand in 13 goals in his past 15 Wales appearances (eight goals, five assists), scoring in six of his past seven matches (six goals). Since manager Bellamy's arrival, Wilson has twice as many Wales goals as any other player (six – Brennan Johnson second with three).

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