Nickname(s) |
The Dragons (Welsh: Y Dreigiau) |
- The Wales national football team (Welsh: Tîm pêl-droed cenedlaethol Cymru) represents Wales in international football.
- It is controlled by the Football Association of Wales (FAW), the governing body for football in Wales and the third-oldest national football association in the world, founded in 1876.
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- The team has qualified for the FIFA World Cup twice, in 1958 and 2022.
- In 1958, they reached the quarter-finals before losing to eventual champions Brazil.
- They then went 58 years before reaching their second major tournament, when – following a rise of 109 places from an all-time low of 117th to a peak of 8th in the FIFA World Rankings between August 2011 and October 2015 – they qualified for UEFA Euro 2016, where they reached the semi-finals before again losing to the eventual champions, Portugal.
- A second successive UEFA European Championship followed when Wales reached the round of 16 of UEFA Euro 2020.
- They also progressed through UEFA Euro 1976 qualifying to the quarter-finals, though this was played on a two-legged, home-and-away basis and is not considered part of the finals tournament.
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- Historically, the Welsh team has featured a number of players from Wales' top club teams, Cardiff City and Swansea City.
- These two Welsh clubs play in the English league system alongside fellow Welsh clubs Newport County, Wrexham and Merthyr Town.
- However, the majority of Welsh football clubs play in the Welsh football league system.
- Wales, as a country of the United Kingdom, is not a member of the International Olympic Committee and therefore the national team does not compete in the Olympic Games.
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