ABSTRACT
Football has been a powerful expression of Welsh identity and this has often been expressed in terms of difference to England. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, a better Wales team was slowly emerging and in 2016 it not only qualified for the finals of a major tournament for the first time since 1958 but also reached the semi-finals. By the time modern football developed in the mid-Victorian period, cultural assimilation between Wales and England was far advanced. The national reawakening may have been symbolised and embodied by the establishment of a national team, competition and association for football but the cultural and economic networks of north-east Wales meant people from just over the English border were incorporated into football's new national institutions, while representatives of south Wales were absent. At the time of World War II, International football was slowly emerging as a vehicle for expressing Welsh and other British national identities outside the UK.
