DOHA : As Wales prepare to make their World Cup return, a party atmosphere is brewing that was 64 years in the making as Welsh fans get ready to leave behind decades of footballing bad luck, near misses and agonising disappointment.
Yet the impact of the fixture on Wales stretches beyond the confines of the pitch, a chance to forget decades of disappointment and look towards the future, with the country's First Minister Mark Drakeford in Qatar to mark the occasion. For a sport-loving country like Wales, where as Drakeford explains"if two flies are climbing up a wall and one of them was Welsh, people in Wales would be there supporting it", the years of missing out on the World Cup were a succession of gut punches.
There were many group stage campaigns that Welsh fans will not want to remember for their unremarkable failure but there were some where the World Cup was tantalisingly dangled within reach only to be snatched away at the death. "I was coming to the end then, I was 34, and thinking 'well, I might not get another chance' and I didn't get another chance."
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