Until 2022, Wales had not qualified for the football World Cup tournament since 1958, where they had lost in the quarter finals to the eventual winners, Brazil.

Mooney, who took up his role with the FAW last summer from an executive position with European football governing body Uefa, also revealed he was first unsure whether to try the singing of the Dafydd Iwan cult song Yma o Hyd, before Welsh games. It offers comprehensive neck coverage, which is what our fans will need in the punishing heat of Qatar as they watch Wales crush England in the groups, then make their inevitable, unstoppable progress towards the trophy. During the 2015 Rugby World Cup, which saw matches held in Cardiff, the 'ball in the wall' installation at Cardiff Castle became a huge focal point for fans.On the 55th minute, Hal Robson-Kanu – a player out of contract at Championship side Reading – received the ball on the penalty spot, surrounded by defenders, at which point he performed the most elegant of feints – a Cruyff turn that wrong-footed his opponents, sending three Belgians stumbling away into oblivion – before he calmly slotted the ball home.

Art installations depicting the iconic bucket hats worn by Welsh football fans will light up Wales' cities and towns during this winter’s World Cup. I wasn’t alive to witness the great robbery of 1977 when a Maradona-grade handball decision sent Scotland to the 1978 World Cup at our expense and I was a touch too young to have my hopes and dreams brutally crushed by Paul Bodin’s missed penalty of 1993, which would have taken us to USA 94. All of which is to say how strange it is that we find ourselves here, with Wales preparing for their third major tournament in less than a decade – and this time a World Cup. One will be in Central Square in the centre of Cardiff, as well as those in Swansea, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Wrexham.

The red, yellow and green bucket hat was often seen at overseas Wales football matches, [7] but it first came to widespread popularity during the 2016 European football championship, where it became strongly associated with Wales supporters. Large structures of the popular accessory have also been placed in Cardiff, in The Hayes, and in Swansea's Castle Square. We have notes from hundreds of kids and parents since saying they had not been interested in learning Welsh, but because Gareth Bale sings in Welsh they have become interested. Despite the range of personalities and backgrounds among the players – those who speak Welsh and those who do not, those who grew up in Wales and those who did not, those who are multimillionaire global stars and those like Kieffer Moore who, until recently, was playing non-league football while still working as a lifeguard in Truro – there is room for everyone beneath the capacious, absurd bucket hat. Julia Ford, Ash Grove and Rosa Grove: ‘The hat represents being a part of the group, like England have the Three Lions.