Matty Jones has hunger and belief for new Cymru U21 campaign

The Cymru U21 squad begin a new qualifying campaign against top seeds Denmark at Rodney Parade on Monday 8 September (7.30pm) and head coach Matty Jones has a hunger to achieve success having narrowly missed out last time around.

“We came so close to qualification,” explained Jones earlier this week. “We’ve spoken about qualification and what that means to us, but also I’ve spoken a lot about my remit in this role and the importance of projecting players to our national team. It’s definitely made me more hungry. Desire is a massive thing as a coach, and I want to be able to pass that on and create motivation and inspiration for these young lads.”

The last qualifying campaign came to an end for Cymru last October when the side missed out on a play-off place, but the focus now is very much on the long journey to the 2027 UEFA U21 EURO Finals that will take place in Albania and Serbia. “I couldn’t be any more focused or any more concentrated as I was in the last campaign,” Jones added. “But it’s made me hungry, and it’s made the players hungry.”

A new qualifying campaign at this level inevitably leads to a number of changes as players are no longer eligible for U21 football and exciting new talents emerge from the pathway system. Manchester United striker Gabriele Biancheri is one such potential star and the 18-year-old is the youngest player in the squad. However, while Biancheri recently trained with the Canadian senior squad, Jones remains positive about his international future with Cymru.

“It’s been a fascinating journey,” said Jones about the forward. “He’s come through the system with us. What we try to do with the younger age group players is encourage them to have those experiences when they’re younger to help them make their decisions. We always feel fully confident of what we create in all age groups in terms of our environment and what it feels like, and should feel like, to represent our country.

“It was something he felt he needed to explore and all we could do was support him. The difficulty is that the scrutiny is a lot more in the older age groups. I’ve had two calls with him since he’s returned that were positive. ‘It just wasn’t Wales’ was quite a nice line for him to give us to know that we’d have the confidence to select him back into our environment, so we have brought him back in and he’s itching to go.”

Along with Biancheri, Vimal Yoganathan and Dan Cox are two other uncapped players at U21 level, together with goalkeepers Kit Margetson and Luke Armstrong who are both currently on-loan at JD Cymru Premier clubs Connah’s Quay Nomads and Penybont respectively. Joel Cotterill and Chris Popov are the most-experienced players having made 13 appearances each at U21 level.

Cymru have been drawn in Group I alongside Belgium, Austria, Belarus and top seeds Denmark, with the group winners progressing to the finals and the runners-up qualifying for the play-offs. “My ambition is always to be a top seeded nation, to be the favourite,” Jones added. “But what we’ve done, certainly in the last campaign, is given the players the belief and instil so much confidence into them that they can compete.

“Where we’re currently at with this group of players is that we’re starting afresh and they’re young. Ending the last campaign with the amount of experience and success we had, we’ve had to draw a line. It can be frustrating at times, but going through the process is vitally important. It’s an exciting opportunity and the challenge is going to be wonderful for our lads and a great test for me again.”