Both Wales and the Republic of Ireland were minutes from hosting a World Cup play-off final on Tuesday – only for near-post headers and penalties to be their undoing

“We’ve got a home nations Euros coming up, what an incredible time.

“We wanted to be in a World Cup this summer, but the future is very bright. There are some good years ahead for Wales.

“I’m disappointed for the players we couldn’t get back-to-back World Cups because we are a good team.”

“We’re going to hurt, but there’s a bright future. It’s hard to think about now, even though I’m trying.”

“I’ll think about that tomorrow morning because that hurt is sinking in now. It will be difficult to sleep off the back of this one but it makes me even more determined.

“Tomorrow the sun will rise and I’m going to watch that sunrise.”

We have our eight finalists:

• Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Italy
• Czech Republic vs Denmark
• Kosovo vs Turkey
• Sweden vs Poland

They’ll be played on Tuesday night.

• Wales 1-1 Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia-Herzegovina win 4-2 on pens)
• Czech Republic 2-2 Republic of Ireland (Czech Republic win 4-3 on pens)
• Italy 2-0 Northern Ireland
• Denmark 4-0 North Macedonia
• Poland 2-1 Albania
• Slovakia 3-4 Kosovo
• Ukraine 1-3 Sweden
• Turkey 1-0 Romania

“We are happy that we could celebrate with our fans.

“They follow us everywhere we go and this is just as much for them as it is us. I think it was just about that one ball that comes and we score from it.

“I think at the beginning we were a bit shy and protecting our goal, even though they only had one chance in the first half. The goal they scored was a bit unlucky for us but I think it gave us a different energy, power and confidence.

“Once we got it to 1-1 I think we deserved it, and I think at the end we had chances to get that second goal. Wales got forward more in the second half but we defended well and won the game on penalties.”

Jan Kliment fired the Czech Republic to within 90 minutes of the World Cup finals as they broke Republic of Ireland hearts in a dramatic penalty shoot-out to set up a showdown with Denmark.

Substitute Kliment scored the decisive spot-kick at the Fortuna Arena after Finn Azaz and Alan Browne had seen their efforts saved by Matej Kovar to book a clash with the Danes on Tuesday night with a trip to the United States, Canada and Mexico at stake.

“We’re devastated, that’s the only word for it,” Darlow told the BBC.

“We’ve given our everything out there and come this for, unfortunately it wasn’t to be tonight.

“We’ve played our own brand of football and we can be proud of that.

“It’s such a young group full of talented characters, we’re devastated tonight but we are growing and you can see that over the last couple years.”