For Gareth Bale and his Wales team-mates, the World Cup dream becomes real when they kick off their campaign on Monday night. In doing so, Wales finally end 64 years of hurt by appearing on the global stage.
As such, the Class of 2022 are the lucky ones. Wales have always had a plethora of truly international class stars who, like George Best, Eric Cantona and Alfredo Di Stefano, never got to appear in a World Cup.
To celebrate our involvement at Qatar 2022, and having consulted with experts and football historians, we've put together a list in ascending order of the greatest 25 Wales men's players in history. As you go through the stars of yesteryear, you realise just how many truly stellar footballers have come from Wales and how it's barmy we have never qualified for the World Cup before.
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Many of them were deserving of that platform and would have lit up the world stage, had the opportunity arisen. Our top 25 are so good that some wonderful Welsh servants don't even make the cut.
We've decided to pick players post-the war, which also rules out the great Billy Meredith, a wing wizard who played more than 300 times for Manchester United and also Manchester City in the early 1900s. Reading about him, he was clearly a special talent.
Anyway, here are Wales' greatest 25...
25: Joe Allen (midfield)
Wales caps 72 (2009 to present day)
Goals 2
A modern-day Welsh legend, Allen has made an enormous impact of his own since his debut in 2009. Small in stature he may be, but at times he has been a giant in the Wales midfield, combining calm, composed passing skills with tenacity and tigerish tackling.
Shone so brightly at the Euros in France six years ago that he was named in the team of the tournament.
24: Micky Thomas (midfield)
Wales caps 51 (1976-86)
Goals 4
Micky started with home-town club Wrexham and also starred at the highest club level with Manchester United and Chelsea, among his other clubs. Worked his socks off up and down the left flank for club and country, but also possessed the craft to create and score goals at key moments - including one against England.
A laugh-a-minute character, he always played with a smile on his face - and had a whole plethora of brilliantly funny tales to tell you off the field, too.. What a legend.
23: Alf Sherwood (full-back)
Wales caps 41 (1946-56)
Goals 0
The full-back positions haven't always been Wales' strongest suit, but Sherwood has to get in this top 25 simply because of the testimony of the great Sit Stanley Matthews who described him as the most difficult opponent he came up against.
Played over 10 year period for Wales and also made more than 350 appearances for Cardiff City. Just missed out on the Class of 1958, having retired from football he went on to work as a security officer for the National Coal Board.
22: Dean Saunders (striker)
Wales caps 75 (1986-2001)
Goals 22
Like Micky Thomas he always played with a smile - except when he missed a chance in front of goal. Which wasn't very often.
Deano was lethal in the penalty box for Wales, scoring almost a goal every three games, even though he was often stuck out on the right wing. Genuinely quick, direct and with an eye for goal, he often terrorised defenders and would have strongly fancied his chances of scoring goals at a World Cup.
His goal ratio at club level, one almost every three matches, mirrored what he did with Wales. Some damn decent teams he represented, too - Liverpool, Aston Villa, Galatasaray and Benfica among them.
21: Mike England (centre-half)
Wales caps 44 (1962-74)
Goals 4
Given the excellence of more modern centre-backs like Ashley Williams and Danny Gabbidon, it's easy to forget just how good Mike England was.
But he was good. Very good. You don't play 300 matches for Tottenham Hotspur without having something about you and England was a defensive colossus, helping Spurs win the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup in the 1960s and 1970s.
Wales' youngest captain, until Aaron Ramsey took his record under Gary Speed's management in 2011, England was a natural leader of men and went on to cement his place in Welsh football folklore with an eight-year spell as manager.
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England was sacked as Wales boss in 1988 and never had another job in football. He owned nursing homes in his native north Wales and ran a timber business.
At 81, he'll be keeping a close eye on Wales' fortunes out in Qatar.
20: Roy Paul (midfield)
Wales caps 33 (1949-56)
Goals 1
From Treorchy, football historians say Paul simply has to be in the top 20. He was said to be as good, and as hard, a midfielder as you could find back then, and a lynchpin for Manchester City during almost 300 appearances. Captained them for seven years and led them to back-to-back FA Cup finals.
19: Joey Jones (left-back)
Wales caps 72 (1975-86)
Goals 1
Loved everywhere, but particularly in Wrexham where he was named the club's ultimate cult idol. Mind, he's also highly regarded by Liverpool fans too, featuring midway among a poll of their favourite Anfield players. More than 100,000 Reds supporters took part in the vote called Players Who Shook The Kop .
Considering the quality of stars who have appeared for Liverpool down the decades, it says everything about Joey's charisma and ability that he should make the cut, and reasonably high up the list too.
Joey made his Wales debut in 1975 against Austria and for pretty much for every single one of his 72 caps you could argue he was the soul of the Welsh team for more than a decade, his firebrand nature at left-back and sheer passion beautifully complementing the more gifted footballers around him.
Not that Joey was any mug with ball at feet, mind. He won the League title with Liverpool next to the likes of Kevin Keegan, Tommy Smith and Emlyn Hughes, became the first Welshman to win the European Cup in 1977 and shone for Chelsea as well.
18: Alan Curtis (winger)
Wales caps 36 (1976-87)
Goals 6
Curt was a beautiful footballer, a mix of silky skill, pace, and with a ferocious shot, part of the Swansea City team under John Toshack in the early 1980s who went from bottom of the old Division Four to topping Division One.
17: Jack Kelsey (goalkeeper)
Wales caps 41 (1949-63)
Goals 0
The first of the Sweden World Cup Class of 1958 to enter the list. Kelsey was a one club man, first-choice keeper for Arsenal between 1949-63 when they were one of the finest teams in Europe. He made well over 300 Gunners appearances.
He was voted best goalie in the 1958 World Cup. Wales were eventually knocked out in the quarter-finals, but only after a Pele shot deflected off defender Stuart Williams and left Kelsey stranded.
16: Terry Yorath (midfield)
Wales caps 59 (1969-81)
Goals 2
TY was a wonderful midfielder, who could make sublime passes and also stop the opposition with destructive tackling.
As combative as they came, his Welsh passion burned through every time he pulled on the red shirt. The fact that he was named captain for 42 of his Wales caps says everything about how highly he was regarded in the dressing room.
Back then, fans fed off the hwyl and spirit displayed by Yorath. There were better players than him in the side, but he provided the leadership and knitted everything together. Skippered Wales to the 1976 European Championship quarter-finals where they infamously fell to controversial refereeing decisions in what was dubbed The Battle of Ninian Park against Yugoslavia.
In a way Yorath was desperately unlucky to be at Leeds in the same era as greats Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, who had the central midfield positions sewn up, but who better to learn his trade from? Yorath still made 141 appearances for the Elland Road giants before further top flight appearances for Coventry and Tottenham.
15: Craig Bellamy (striker)
Wales caps 78 (1998-2013)
Goals 19
Speaking of sheer Welsh passion, Bellamy would give Yorath a run for his money. He even has a tattoo of Owain Glyndwr.
Bellamy, at his best and free from injury, was an incredible talent. As quick as they came, he would terrorise defenders by racing beyond them and was the kind of player who got fans on the edge of their seats.
If there's a critique, it is that someone of his enormous talent should have scored more goals than he did. But when he shone, Wales tended to shine too. Never more so than when he struck the 2002 Euro winner over Italy in front of an enthralled 74,000 Millennium Stadium crowd.
That Euros campaign was perhaps a microcosm of Bellamy's Wales career. At his best he was utterly brilliant and indeed unstoppable, as Italy found to their cost, but he had cruel luck with injuries and missed too many key matches. One was the play-off showdown with Russia in Cardiff. Had Bellamy been fit for that one, Wales would probably have qualified - and performed brilliantly out in Portugal too, such was the stardust in Mark Hughes' side.
14: Gary Speed (midfield)
Wales caps 85 (1990-2004)
Goals 7
There is a story which says everything about Speedo's love for Wales.
Whenever he drove home to team up with the Welsh camp, be that a journey from Leeds, Everton or Newcastle, he would always stick on Tom Jones' hit The Green Green Grass Of Home as soon as he reached the England-Wales border.
His is another whose passion burned deep. He was some player too. Always a seven out of 10, often an eight, sometimes even a nine.
Others may have hogged the back page headlines, but Speed was the glue holding Wales together for 14 years, from the time he made his debut against Costa Rica in 1990 to his final cap, a 3-2 World Cup qualifying loss to Poland in 2004.
In between Speed did... well he did pretty much everything. Made the tackles, won the headers, sprayed the passes, scored the occasional important goal.
13: Kevin Ratcliffe (centre-back)
Wales caps 59 (1981-93)
Goals 0
Ratcliffe had few peers as a centre-back. As well as being a no-nonsense defender, he was elegant with it and had pace to burn that enabled him to keep up with the quickest strikers on the planet to nick the ball off them.
He became Everton captain at the age of just 23, leading that great Goodison side of the mid-80s to two league title triumphs, an FA Cup win, the UEFA Cup and various other Wembley appearances.
12: Trevor Ford (centre-forward)
Wales caps 38 (1946-56)
Goals 23
When the great John Charles calls someone his football idol, you know you're talking about real talent. Step forward Trevor Ford, the centre-forward colossus into whose footsteps King John followed.
Ford smashed records. He became Wales' leading scorer, netting almost a goal every one and a half games. That was a truly phenomenal ratio Erling Haaland would be proud of.
Carried that through at club level too, where he played for Aston Villa, Sunderland, Cardiff City, PSV Eindhoven and home-town club Swansea Town, netting 206 goals in 411 matches.
The only reason the figures weren't even more extraordinary was because Ford was suspended by the FA after revealing details of extra payments being made to players during his time at Sunderland, who he joined for a record British transfer fee, in an attempt to avoid the maximum wage in place back then. Because of the ban he was unable to play in Britain, thus moving to the Netherlands, and couldn't participate in Wales' 1958 World Cup squad.
Might have won it with him.
11: John Toshack (centre-forward)
Wales caps 40 (1969-80)
Goals 13
His goal ratio wasn't as good as that of Trevor Ford, but Tosh was a true icon in his own right. Worldwide, given what he went on to achieve as a manager, perhaps he's the biggest Welsh football name of the lot.
A key figure in the only Welsh team to top a qualifying group, Mike Smith's Class of '76, who went on to lose a contentious two-legged quarter-final with Yugoslavia. He scored three goals during that campaign and also netted a memorable hat-trick versus Scotland in the Home Internationals.
Liverpool paid a club record £110,000 to sign Toshack from Cardiff City and it was at Anfield that his career really ignited, Tosh forging a little and large partnership with Kevin Keegan as the Reds conquered at home and abroad. He won three league titles, the FA Cup, European Cup and UEFA Cup twice.
10: Leighton James (winger)
Wales caps 54 (1971-83)
Goals 10
What would this guy be worth in today's transfer market? A free-flowing, free scoring winger, he would destroy opposition full-backs by running at them with his searing pace and inevitably creating something at the end of it.
In a Wales team full of real stars and strong characters, he was perhaps the most talented of the lot.
9: Ivor Allchurch (inside forward)
Wales caps 68 (1950-66)
Goals 23
A masterful inside forward, he was part of the World Cup team in 1958 and his goal record, one in three, was more than commendable.. He scored in the play-off versus Israel to ensure Wales could get to Sweden.
The Gareth Bale of his time, you might say.
8: Aaron Ramsey (No.10)
Wales caps 75 (2008 to present day)
Goals 20
The best player to come through the Welsh club system in decades. Absolutely oozed class for Cardiff City, who ended up selling him to Arsenal for a scandalously low transfer fee of just £5million - made worse by the fact chairman Peter Ridsdale didn't insert a sell-on clause.
The best midfielder in Euro 2016, Ramsey then bagged the goals against Hungary that qualified Wales for the next Euros as well.
7: Cliff Jones (winger)
Wales caps 59 (1954-69)
Goals 16
He would have been a star in any era. Scored in the play-off win over Israel that enabled Wales to reach the 1958 World Cup. Also netted a winning goal against England - something not too many Welshmen can boast about.
Was a kingpin of the historic Tottenham Hotspur side of 1960-61 who did the League Championship and FA Cup double, scoring 19 goals that season. Then helped Spurs win the FA Cup again in 1962 and the old European Cup Winners Cup the following year.
Fair to say this guy could play. And he could do it on either flank, too. Regarded as one of the finest wingers in the world during his prime. Italian giants Juventus wanted to sign him for a then world record fee, but Spurs wouldn't sell.
6: Neville Southall
Wales caps 92 (1982-97)
Goals 0
Utterly phenomenal. For a period Big Nev was the best goalkeeper in the world - during a time when there were plenty of good goalkeepers around, too.
Mark Hughes used to say Wales won big games because the strikers could conjure up a goal from nowhere and Big Nev would make a string of out of the ordinary stops.
Some of them almost defied belief. Ironically, one of his greatest games for Wales was during a 7-1 drubbing under Bobby Gould against the Netherlands in Eindhoven. Were it not for Southall's sheer brilliance that night, Vinnie Jones led Wales would have let in 20 goals. He could do nothing about the seven that went past him.
His status as an Everton legend is cemented. Nev was just the greatest. For club and country.
5: Mark Hughes (striker)
Wales caps 72 (1984-99)
Goals 16
Gentle, thoughtful, quiet off the field, yet role reversal on the pitch as he went toe-to-toe with the toughest defenders on the planet in utterly fearless fashion.
What a player, an absolute lion for club and country who could mix physical power with skill and stunning shooting power in either foot.
Was destined for stardom the moment he scored just 17 minutes into his Wales debut, the winner against England in the last Home International Championship meeting between the old rivals.
Played 72 times in total for Wales, often put into midfield such was the plethora of strikers available. He never moaned, though, just played there as expertly as he did as a forward.
Perhaps he should have scored more than the 16 goals he managed for Wales. Perhaps had he played in the crunch 1993 qualifier with Romania, for which he was suspended, the World Cup jinx would have been broken back then.
Played almost 400 times for Manchester United, also starred for Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea.
4: Ian Rush (striker)
Wales caps 73 (1980-96)
Goals 28
The greatest striker in the world during his pomp, if anybody deserved to be at a World Cup it was Rushie.
He was simply unstoppable, a sublime finisher who also possessed blinding pace which saw him race clear of defenders time and time again to stick the ball in the back of the net.
His goal record is extraordinary, more than 350 of them for Liverpool during two spells with the Anfield giants. He is their record scorer and it's hard to see how his tally gets broken. For many years he was also Wales' record scorer.
Rushie won countless honours with the Reds - five league titles, three FA Cups, six League Cups, two European Cups. He was named Footballer of the Year, won the European Golden Boot and had a string of other individual honours.
Rush and Dalglish for Liverpool, Rush and Hughes for Wales. These were two fearsomely good stirking combinations.
3: Ryan Giggs (winger)
Wales caps 64 (1991-2007)
Goals 12
Didn't play enough for Wales and didn't play well enough for Wales. So say the critics.
The first part of the claim is certainly true. A player of Giggs' stature should have certainly won far more caps - and indeed scored a lot more goals.
Having burst onto the scene as 'the new George Best' and superstar of the British game in the very early 1990s, Sir Alex Ferguson held Giggs back from friendly international appearances to protect his fitness for Manchester United. It is one of the reasons Giggs was able to play through until the age of 40, albeit his continued absences were a real source of annoyance to others.
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Some of his performances were out of this world at times, although he failed to reach those heights when it came to one or two really crunch games. But he was an unbelievable playing talent, who had fans on the edge of their feet spellbound whenever the ball was at his left foot.
Won a record 13 Premier League titles with Manchester United, four FA Cups, three League Cups, two Champions Leagues and various individual honours.
2: John Charles (centre-forward, centre-half)
Wales caps 38 (1950-65)
Goals 15
It's hard to quantify in words just how good King John was. But let's try.
In more modern parlance, take a centre-half as good as John Terry, only much better, then a centre forward as good as Alan Shearer, only much better. Next roll them into one footballer. Then you almost get a player as good as John Charles.
He really was that special, world class as a striker, world class as a defender.
Played for Wales at the 1958 World Cup, scored in the group stages against Hungary but then got injured. Missed the 1-0 quarter-final defeat to Brazil when Pele scored the winner. It was felt had Charles played, Wales would have won - and the entire course of football history might have been altered.
From Swansea, he grew up with Leeds and bagged 157 goals in 297 matches.
Then went to Juventus where he hit 108 goals in 155 games, leading the Old Lady to three Serie A titles and two Coppa Italia triumphs.
He was voted ahead of Diego Maradona as Italian football's greatest foreign import. No need to say too much more, really. That fact says it better than anything.
Bagged almost a goal every two games with Wales. Considering lots of those appearances were as a centre-half, the goal ratio figure is extraordinary.
Through everything, he was also loved for being a great sportsman who never moaned to referees and was always fair to the opposition.
Legendary Welsh referee Clive Thomas said: "If you had 22 players of John's calibre, there would be no need for referees – only time-keepers."
Sir Bobby Robson called him 'incomparable' and right up there with Pele, Maradona and George Best as football's greatest.
Jack Charlton, who played with Charles at Leeds, once stated: "John was a team unto himself. People often say to me, 'Who was the best player you saw?', and I answer that it was probably Eusebio, Di Stefano, Cruyff, Pele, or our Bob. But the most effective player I saw, the one that made the most difference to the performance of the whole team, was without question John Charles."
For their 50th anniversary in 2004, UEFA asked every member association to nominate one player as their country's most outstanding footballer. The FA of Wales chose John Charles.
That. however, was before...
1: Gareth Bale
Wales caps 108 (2006-present)
Goals 40
Anyone eclipsing John Charles has to be good. Damn good.
Step forward Gareth Bale.
He has been incredible and can cement his legacy even further by helping Wales to shine out in Qatar.
At the age of 16 years and 315 days, Bale became the youngest player to appear for Wales and straight away you knew there was a megastar in the making.
He was one of a clutch of young players brought through by John Toshack, who said he had to stand on the side of the pitch telling them where to go and what needed to be done against battle-hardened pros in international football.
"Not with Gareth though. Before I could say anything, he'd already gone into the position and done it," says Tosh.
Bale ended decades of Wales hurt by firing the team to Euro 2016. No footballer in Europe had as big an influence upon any country in terms of goals and assists. Wales were never a one-man side, but Bale always made the difference.
Although not the force of old. he then fired Wales into the World Cup for the first time in 64 years with two cracking goals in the play-off semi against Austria, before providing the moment that also saw Ukraine downed in the final.
Power, pace, panache, heading ability, wonder goals, in his pomp Bale had everything in his locker. But he was the first one putting in the hard yards for Wales too, leading by example with a work ethic and sheer will to win. If Gareth Bale can do it, so can we, was the view of his team-mates.
Oh, he also donated £1million to Cardiff and Madrid hospitals during the pandemic. Just when Welsh folk thought they couldn't love the man any more!
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