“I am ready,” says Wales captain Gareth Bale as his country features in their first FIFA World Cup since 1958

The FIFA World CUp is underway and it will be an historic event for Wales as they have qualified for the first time since 1958. Hence the spirits are high and their talisman Gareth Bale is very much excited to get things started in Qatar.

The former Real Madrid man joined Los Angeles FC in Juane to boost his fitness ahead of the quadrennial tournament. He only started a couple of games and most of his minutes were from the bench. He did make a lot of impact but he was mostly starting on the bench. He is confident of Wales’ chances in this World Cup and also believes in himself when he says that he is in brilliant shape.

“I’m right where I want to be – I’m here! I’m ready to go,” Bale said in the pre-match press conference. “We’ve all been training hard in the last week, adapting to the heat and time zone. We have no excuses now. We’ve put all the hard work in. It’s game time tomorrow and hopefully we can step up and deliver what needs to be delivered.”

Wales are in Group B with heavyweights England, Iran and United States. From his experience in Los Angeles, Bale has some ideas about their opponents. He has played with and against some of the American players and would know a thing or two more than his Welsh teammates. “I have some experience of playing against and with some of the US team” he said.

Bale understands that they are a fantastic team and have travelled to Qatar with the intention of winning each and every game. However he believes that Wales have that firepower in them to beat the US. “They’re a good young squad with some fantastic players. We’re under no illusions that they’re here to win the game just as we are. We know their weaknesses, I can’t share them with you right now as long as we stick to our game plan and do what we do we’ll be OK,” Bale explained.

Bale finally opens up on his dream of playing in the World Cup for Wales and that dream has finally come to fruition as they will be featuring for the first time since 1958 and the players would want to make it special as they are eagerly looking forward to it. “As a kid you dream of seeing Wales in a World Cup but to actually be in the team that achieves it is an incredible feeling, an honour to be able to do it for our country,” he reminisced.

“It’s going to be a fun time for us hopefully and one that we want to enjoy and have fun on the pitch as we always do as the national team,” Bale concluded.

Wales have great chance to qualify for the knockouts if they play their cards right. They would like to get wins against Iran and the United States. Whereas look to put up a fight against a very well balanced England outfit. A lot will depend on Bale but he will have ample amount of support from others aswell.