Dai @colemans_dream takes an emotional look at Cymru’s qualification for Euro 2025.

In April 2018, I watched a football match that changed me and the football I watched. Wales travelled to Southampton to face an England team tipped to take on Europe and the world. Wales scrapped and fought and battled and they pushed so hard even the keeper had cramp. It was the best 0-0 draw I’d ever seen. And the ball crossed the line by the way. We should have beaten them.

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Wales’ heroes of Fishlock, Harding, O’Sullivan and more were starting something. Women’s football was changing and it was becoming something which was becoming embedded in the national football consciousness. We would go on and turn over Russia in a scintillating 3-0 victory and before you knew it, we faced England for a place in World Cup 2019. We sold out Rodney Parade and despite hanging on for an hour, we conceded and succumbed to a 3-0 victory. Things changed forever in that campaign though as those players became heroes for a new legion of bucket hat wearing supporters. Welsh women’s football was on the map. 

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I say that campaign changed me and how I watched football, because now the women’s qualifiers were just as “must watch” for me as the men’s game. Ruth and I were fortunate enough to speak to a lot of the current and recent team and the access we had to the players was incredible really. Fishlock, Harding, Ward, Roberts with McAllister, Harris and now Clark too. We got to hear first hand just how much they cared about playing for Wales.

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How tough their story had been to make it as professionals and yet they gave us so much time and insight. Their openness and positivity toward us, drew us further to them. A special group of people who will go down in Welsh history books. 

The next campaign was peak Welsh football “unlucky losers”. We finished joint second behind Northern Ireland on away goals scored in head to heads (despite our goal difference being 12 better than theirs by the way) after 0-0 and 2-2 draws. A last gasp equaliser for Northern Ireland in Newport costing us 3 points, and a place in the playoffs. They would go on to comfortably beat Ukraine and book their place in Euro 2022. 

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If we thought that was a cruel way to miss out, the Welsh book of heartbreak was scribbled into once again as Wales attempted to get to the World Cup in Australia. Coming second in a group including the French (the only team to beat us in the campaign) led us once more to the playoffs. A then record crowd saw us beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 1-0 thanks to a simply stunning Jess Fishlock goal.

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The stage was set as we travelled to Switzerland to face the top seeded playoff team in their own back yard. A Rhiannon Roberts goal from an early set piece saw us lead before being pegged back. As we inched towards penalties, Fabienne Humm flicked the ball in at the near post and hearts were broken and ripped apart. Would it ever happen for us? We began to lose key players for one reason or another and then a manager too. 

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Anyone fancy a revenge draw against the hosts this summer by the way? It feels like a bit of a full circle moment. I digress…

Yet we went again. As Welsh people always do. We got a world class manager. We added a sprinkling of youthfulness to an experienced side and built around Fishlock, Ingle and James. We added pace and dynamism and looked capable of blowing people away. We put our nations league group to bed (despite a few iffy moments against Ukraine) and moved to the playoffs once more. Heartbreak seemed to be peering around the dressing room door in Slovakia, but Ffion Morgan managed to fight back against that cruel mistress.

At 2-1 we had hope. And back in Cardiff, we didn’t need hope. We had Fishlock. 2-2. Extra time and we couldn’t have our hearts broken again could we? It couldn’t keep happening, and it didn’t. The glass ceiling was starting to crack with the persistence of Holland trying to smash through.

Then on to Cardiff, and Ireland. Familiar foes and no stranger to breaking a heart in two in the capital. Woodham. Then Clark’s own goal. We had chances, they had chances but it finished 1-1.

On to 3rd December. A night which will never be forgotten. A first half which left the crossbar shaking and the palms of the Cymru keeper more than warmed. And then VAR. Glorious VAR. A penalty and a story of redemption for Hannah Cain. At 25 she has had two knee injuries which could have been career enders, especially in the women’s game. There she stood in the penalty box, fresh from the wilderness and into a starting position few expected her to occupy, and she stood up to the test.

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Welsh football. Women’s football, pulling itself up in adversity and making history. Changing the narrative. Call it what you will. We were to be unlucky losers no more. Carrie Jones used her pace and her calmness and scored a brilliant counter attacking goal to put Wales 2-0 up on the night and 3-1 up in the tie. All this without our greatest ever player who was injured, our best striker who was injured and our most influential midfielder who didn’t take part in any of the playoff games…due to injury.

But it couldn’t be simple could it. Roberts (who was stunning across the two Ireland games by the way) cleared off the line only to see the rebound headed in. Long throws. 8 minutes of time added on. More shots off the line. Corners. Shots from distance. Time wasting. Counter attacks. Injury time antics from Clark. McCabe having tantrums and Ella Powell doing the longest tying up of a ponytail in history to see that clock tick beautifully down. We battled against it all.

To make history. 

The reality is, it has never been easy so why would our crowning glory come easily either? I think these players thrive in that adversity. Of all the heartache. Last gasp failure. To make history. Missed opportunities, dropped crosses, red cards, false dawns, new managers, players retiring and injured. To make HISTORY. 

And in all this euphoria, let’s remember those who got us here. Those who battered down the doors at the FAW to make them support a women’s team. To even make this incredible dream a reality, let’s take a second to remember a few facts. The team wasn’t sanctioned by the FAW until 1993. The women’s team is younger than Jess Fishlock. Sorry Jess.

In 2003 Wales withdrew from the Euro 2005 qualifying campaign to spend more money on the mens team because some of the away trips were too expensive to fund. Wales only had their first full time manager in 2012. And now this. In 20 years we’ve gone from not paying for the players to travel to games to qualification. Remarkable. Thriving once more in the face of adversity, to MAKE HISTORY. 

The special thing about this team, in my eyes, is that they have embodied the struggle of women’s football in Wales and they’ve done it knowing they are shouldering the burden of needing to be the first to break down walls. With limited funds and opportunities they have fought their way into Welsh football mindsets. They’ve changed stereotypes and have made young people, girls and boys, look up to them. Girls have shirts, but instead of Bale on the back, it says Fishlock. For every Ramsey, there is an Ingle.

Finally all of this has culminated in something wonderful and something we all wanted. Those players deserve their success not just for themselves but for the people who made women’s football a reality in Wales and now they’ve built a platform for others to go and succeed. They deserve to have brutal hangovers tomorrow and they deserve to continue to grow and thrive and drag Welsh football through the continuing changes which are required to ensure continued success for women’s football in Wales. 

They have made history and that should never be forgotten. 

I will wrap this up now, and I apologise if this is waffly and poorly constructed but I don’t care. I wanted to express the raw joy and emotion felt at the final whistle and why it means so much. I hope I have captured it. 

Congratulations one and all, to everyone who has been part of this journey of which there are too many to name. The glass ceiling is shattered and we look again to the summer and another glorious Welsh adventure. We couldn’t go one further than 2016 could we? With this team, anything is possible. 

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