Wales' scouting party reported back on "awesome" Belgium in Paris - but manager Chris Coleman still expects Gareth Bale and company to cause the world's second best team problems on Friday.
Coleman and his assistant Osian Roberts were among the Stade de France crowd on Sunday night as Euro 2016 qualifying rivals Belgium showed the class which has taken them to second spot in the FIFA rankings with a 4-3 victory.
Only two late France goals made the scoreline respectable for the hosts as Belgium, who lead Group B on goal difference at the halfway stage of the campaign, sent out a warning to second-placed Wales ahead of their crunch visit to the Cardiff City Stadium.
"When they went forward they were quite awesome and we saw a side that are in a rich vein of form," Roberts said.
"For 60-70 minutes, until substitutions were made, they were comfortable and it could have been six or seven.
"We're under no illusions how difficult it's going to be and what they've got, and no-one's got as much height or power as Belgium.
"I don't think there's any club or national team that has a centre-back marking on the edge of the box on defensive corners, like Belgium do, so that shows what they've got in terms of aerial threat."
Marouane Fellaini scored twice to make it eight goals in his last 13 games for club and country while Radja Nainggolan and Eden Hazard, who will again lead Belgium in Cardiff with Vincent Kompany suspended, were also on target.
But Belgium failed to find breach the Welsh defence during last November's goalless draw in Brussels and Roberts says a lot of work and planning has gone into their defensive organisation.
"We take great credit for the way we've defended," Roberts said. "We've not conceded a goal from open play yet and that's given us a foundation to enter the second half of the campaign.
"Every time we've played them we've played the same way and it's worked.
"They did concede three in Paris so there's a question mark against them, and we're aware what we can do when we've got the ball.
"We didn't quite capitalise in the away game but if we can have that extra bit of quality going forward we can cause them problems."
While Belgium were boosting their confidence in France, Wales chose to resist the idea of a warm-up friendly for fear of picking up injuries.
But Roberts revealed an inter-squad game was hugely competitive and he insisted that it was the right preparation for Wales' biggest match in over a decade.
"Given a lot of the players had not played for four or five weeks it was a risk for them to play 90 minutes on the back of that," Roberts said.
"We felt we could also control the opposition and mirror (Belgium) as opposed to coming up against a team that wouldn't do that.
"It worked well and I saw a few friendlies over the weekend that weren't as competitive as our inter-squad game!"
Source: PA
