Euros preparation and celebrating team-mates - Olivia Clark column

Olivia Clark column banner
[BBC Sport]

Uefa Women's Nations League: Wales v Denmark

Venue: Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff Date: Friday, 4 April Kick-off: 19:15 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC One Wales, BBC iPlayer, BBC Radio Wales and Radio Cymru, the BBC Sport website and app, plus live text commentary

Highlights: S4C and iPlayer, 21:50 GMT and later on demand.

In her latest BBC Sport column, Olivia Clark discusses Wales' start to their Nations League campaign, the Euros being on the horizon, her team-mates Mayzee Davies and Hayley Ladd and her hopes for 2025 with new club Leicester City.

We are back on camp after our opening Nations League games and everyone is in good spirits.

The Sweden game was a great one to be involved with, we were disappointed not to win, but their ranking doesn't lie and it was great to get a result against a top-tier nation.

I think we produced a good performance and that came off the back of the Italy game where we were disappointed to lose 1-0.

Certainly, we come into these games targeting six points. We don't feel out of place in Nations League A.

Individually, we have players now who are playing in some of the biggest leagues in the world and I think that helps to give us belief as a squad that we can be competitive against anyone.

We have played a lot of top nations, like the USA and we've produced good performances but not got the results, but I think now the mindset change is that we believe we can compete with the best.

Rhian Wilkinson has helped with that but there is also a balance that we have perspective about what we've done in the past. We tend to always be better in the second game in the Nations League as well.

We are definitely becoming more comfortable with the ball. In one of our previous best draws, against England at St Mary's Stadium, which was before my time, England had a lot of shots.

Now we are more comfortable and against Sweden I didn't really have a clear cut chance to save. We aren't just holding on for a point. We are competitive and we are trying to win games.

Big performances in big games

There were two momentous performances in the last camp, with Mayzee Davies winning her first start and Hayley Ladd winning her 100th cap.

Mayzee was great, she came in and did so well and she's a great character to have around as well, she takes everything in her stride.

I asked her if she was ok and she was like "yeah", chilled as anything and she played like she's been around for years and you can tell she's been training with Man City's first team.

Hayley made her 100th appearance for Wales on the last camp and what an honour for her, a special player and person.

Hayley as a player is unbelievable, she's so underrated and under appreciated in the whole of the women's game, as her team-mates, we know how good she is.

People don't talk about her as much as they should but she probably likes it ...

Save Story