Wales host Denmark with Nations League survival and Euro 2028 seeding at stake

A win on Sunday would keep Wales in charge of their League A fate and strengthen their bid for top seeding in the Euro 2028 qualifying draw.

Craig Bellamy's Wales snapped a six-match winless run on Thursday, beating Erling Haaland's Norway 2-1 in Cardiff for their first victory of this Nations League A campaign. The result came against a Norway side reduced to 10 men and followed opening defeats in Portugal and Denmark. The turnaround is immediate, with Denmark, who won 2-0 when the teams met in Copenhagen last weekend, visiting Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday.

A victory would carry extra weight: it would be Wales' first back-to-back wins over higher-ranked nations in more than a decade. It would also serve the aim Bellamy has set for this campaign of avoiding a repeat of 2022, when Wales went down from League A without a single win under Rob Page in their only previous campaign at this level.

Thursday's triumph did not move Wales off the bottom of Group A4, where they trail Denmark and Norway on goal difference. Staying up is a more realistic prospect than in past editions, however, thanks to changes to the relegation format for the 2028-29 Nations League.

Under the old rules, the fourth-placed team in each League A group was demoted automatically, with the third-placed sides going into promotion-relegation playoffs against League B runners-up. Now only the two worst fourth-placed teams go down outright, while the remaining pair enter two-legged playoffs in March 2027. The two best third-placed teams are guaranteed to stay up, the next two go to the playoffs, and the ranking is decided on points, goal difference and the usual tiebreaking criteria.

Wales currently rank as the strongest of the fourth-placed teams across the groups. A win over Denmark, paired with that standing, would significantly improve their chances of avoiding the playoffs altogether.

Three points would also leave Wales deciding their own fate heading into the final group fixtures next month: away to Norway in Oslo on November 14 and at home to Portugal three days later. Second place, and with it a place in the two-legged Nations League quarterfinals scheduled for March, remains in play as well.

The reach extends to Euro 2028. Seeding for the European Championship qualifying draw, set for Belfast on December 6, is determined by each nation's position in the overall Nations League ranking. The 12 best-ranked sides after November's final fixtures will be kept apart as first seeds across the 12 qualifying groups, meaning Wales would land in the top pot and dodge the strongest teams simply by avoiding last place in the group.

Wales will co-host Euro 2028 with England, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland but will still go through the standard qualifying process, with all the hosts kept apart in the draw and two places reserved at the finals should any of them fail to qualify. Cardiff's Principality Stadium is scheduled to stage the tournament's opening match on June 9, 2028.

Denmark visit Wales at Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday, October 4, with kickoff at 2:45 PM EDT. Elsewhere in Group A4 that day, Norway play at Portugal in Estádio do Dragão at the same time, a match airing on FS2.