Wales is a nation released. Regardless of what happens against Iran on Friday morning and England next Tuesday evening, Rob Page’s team have imbued their country with a renewed sense of investment in their own culture.
There is a deeper feeling of attachment from Wrexham down to Pembroke – in both the football team and national identity. They go hand in hand and at no point is that clearer than the sight of thousands singing Yma o Hyd, the almost 40-year-old anthem which translates to We’re Still Here.
“The language has been suppressed for centuries, it has been undermined,” Sian Lewis, chief executive of the youth organisation Urdd Gobaith Cymru, tells Mirror Football on the phone from Qatar. “But the football team has helped to normalise it, amplify the appeal of it and put it on the international map.”
