Having gained promotion to League A in 2020, Wales were ranked 13th amongst UEFA members and placed in Pot 3 of seeds for League A. Wales were drawn into Group A4 alongside Belgium, Netherlands and Poland.

The preparations for Wales' debut in the top echelon of the competition was disrupted due to the rearrangement of the FIFA World Cup Play-Off match against Ukraine taking place in the same week as Wales' opening matches in the competition.

With one eye on the Play Off match, Rob Page kept his strongest players on the bench as Wales started their campaign in Wrocław. Despite taking the lead through a Jonny Williams goal, two late Polish goals saw Wales slip to their first defeat since the Euro 2020 quarter final loss to Denmark.

The next match in the campaign came just three days after the Play Off victory over Ukraine with Page once again resting most senior players for the visit of the Netherlands.

Rhys Norrington-Davies' scored his first international goal to bring Wales level two minutes into injury time, but Wout Weghorst broke the home team's hearts two minutes later to safeguard Netherlands' 100% record against Wales.

With the games coming thick and fast, Page changed his starting XI once again for the visit of Belgium just three days later but Wales' excellent record against De Rode Duivels continued as Brennan Johnson scored his first international goal late on in the match to secure Wales' first point of the campaign.

The game in the Netherlands was Wales' fifth game in 14 days and had a real sense of deja vu from the home match as goals from Johnson and an injury time penalty from Gareth Bale gave Wales hopes of avoiding defeat against the Dutch for the very first time.

However with the travelling Wales fans still celebrating, Memphis Depay latched on to a long ball from the Dutch restart to slot past Hennessey and break Welsh hearts for the second time in three matches. Defeat in Belgium saw Wales needing a victory over Poland in the final match in Cardiff in order to avoid relegation back to League B.

The final two matches of the campaign saw Wales without several key players as Aaron Ramsey, Joe Allen and Ben Davies pulled out of the squad through injury.

In a frustrating match notable for the amount of time the Polish players spent on the floor, it was Karol Swiderski who scored the only goal of the game, consigning Wales to relegation.