The Welsh football team is thriving, and in those joyful Cardiff scenes on Sunday you could see our culture in rude health too
Wales is on a high. Whether it’s the unstoppable rise of Welsh language music or the quiet popularity of Mark Drakeford, there is a growing sense of confidence in Welsh identity. And to top it off, last night, Wales sealed its place in the 2022 World Cup after winning against Ukraine at the Cardiff City Stadium. Every one of the players in the Welsh team performed with passion, commitment and that added ingredient that has eluded us in the past: luck.
Football World Cups are for other countries – or at least that’s how it felt until now. Rugby has long been considered Wales’s national sport. But increasingly it’s football that is a source of national pride. All Welsh football fans grew up knowing that 1958 was the last time we reached the World Cup finals; that Brazil are the only team to have ever knocked Wales out of a World Cup tournament; that it took Pelé to beat us. But footage of that 1958 match is in black and white. Wales had only had a capital city for two years before qualifying for the tournament.
Darren Chetty is a writer, teacher and researcher. He is co-editor of Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales
