How dare the Welsh be proud of their national football team’s achievements this summer – success owed almost entirely to their neighbours, England.
While the likes of Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen have been largely anonymous throughout Euro 2016, their recent quarter final victory over Belgium was completely down to English-born goalscorers Ashley Williams, Hal Robson-Kanu and Sam Vokes – as was helpfully pointed out by a recent Daily Mail article.
Having had the sheer audacity to make use of a perfectly legitimate rule to call up players born outside of their own borders, the Welsh have somewhat ignorantly chosen not to acknowledge their neighbours’ contribution to their first major footballing tournament in over half a century.
In contrast to the success of Wales in France, England – motherland to many of this current crop of ‘Welsh’ heroes – are out of the tournament. Having bravely bowed out to Iceland in the last 16 stage, it should be remembered that England – a country with a population nearly 18 times the size of Wales – would never dream of stooping such desperate lows that they select players born on foreign soil.
Having appeared at many more football tournaments than Wales throughout the history of the game of football, the idea of England ever calling on players whose first breaths did not consist entirely of English air is quite simply preposterous.
The same can be said elsewhere in sport, too.
Take the recent Grand Slam winning England Six Nations side. The idea of that squad being made up in part by players born outside of England would without question tarnish the achievements of Australian coach Eddie Jones’ men.
The same can be said of their World Cup-winning side of 2003.
There’s also England’s rich cricketing history. Who can forget the performances of the entirely-English-born victorious Ashes side of 2005?
And let us not forget that the world of cycling has seen some fantastic performances from English men in recent years, too.
Thankfully, it seems it is only the Welsh that choose to celebrate the achievements of players born outside of their country.
Although – to the rest of the world – it will be a hollow achievement if their side make it to the final of Euro 2016, they stand a reasonable chance against a Portugal side who are sweating on the fitness of Brazilian-born Real Madrid defender, Pepe.
