Ben Davies urged his Wales teammates to dispel doubts and qualify for Euro 2024 regardless of what happens this week.

Wales go into the final double header of the qualifying campaign as group runners-up (the top two qualify automatically), with Croatia behind them and level on points. But Wales usurped the Croatians with a magnificent 2-1 home win at the Cardiff City Stadium last month.

Davies, who received the armband in the absence of the injured Aaron Ramsey, captained the match and poignantly greeted his teammates in the crowd on the pitch after the match. During his speech, he quoted Dafydd Ivan’s protest song, ‘Yma o Hyd’, translated as ‘Still Here’, and told his players that despite a series of setbacks during the campaign, this Welsh team would not although.

“It was just about showing why we’re here,” Davis said of his on-field and postgame speech. but we’re still standing. “We are up to the challenge and now we have two games to go.”

Wales travel to Yerevan this weekend to face Armenia, who handed them a shock 4-2 defeat at the Cardiff City Stadium in June that rocked their qualifying campaign. The Tottenham defender said the defeat was a real shock to the system and brought life to the group.

“It was a real wake-up call,” he said of the defeat to Armenia. – I think Armenia is a very good team, which scored incredible goals. At this level it has been shown that if you shut down and don’t do your best, you will be punished. We will not repeat such a mistake again.”

The point is that the classification is in the hands of Wales. It won’t be easy as they lost both games against Armenia and Turkey and will have to reverse those results to guarantee automatic qualification, but Davies insists that Wales, who have been in doubt throughout this campaign, are very concentrated on doing it. Their goal If they do, it will be their fourth major tournament in the last five.

“These last two games are vital. They are a united group and will always attack no matter what. We are ready for this. “Most of us have been in this situation before and this is an opportunity for us to do it again,” she added.

“We never stopped believing in this group. We have the mentality that we can get a result against anyone. We show it. Obviously it was disappointing to lose the game at home. In these groups, your home record should generally be very good. But we were here. We were against the wall, we gave ourselves a chance and now it’s exactly the same.

“When I grew up, Welsh football was a dream to be able to get to these big tournaments. That dream still exists. This is another great opportunity we have. We don’t want to sit on our laurels and say, “Okay, we were there and we had fun.” Once you try it, you’ll want to do it again. This time, as a band, we are there.”

Wales announced on Sunday evening that 25-year-old Jay DaSilva had been called up for the first time, switching international allegiances after representing England at age group level. DaSilva’s grandmother is from Pontypridd and his brother Cole represented Wales at youth level. After hearing about his brother’s challenge, Cole wrote on social media: “The best thing I did in football was represent Wales. Now I can see my brother [sic] do this for older people. Live your dream over and over again. Proud of you, brother.

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Jay, who is currently at Coventry City and grew up at Chelsea before spending four years at Bristol City, is now ready to battle for a place at left-back with Neko Williams and, to a lesser extent, Davies himself. In front of him

During DaSilva’s call, Davis said, “We met with him this morning over breakfast. It’s great that more children come to us. He’s great for the group and I’m sure he’ll adapt quickly. “We’re happy to be there.”

Wales face Armenia in Yerevan on Saturday before facing Turkey at the Cardiff City Stadium next Tuesday.