Logo of the Welsh National Football Team
Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letter to A. F. Oeser, 1768
I am not a huge soccer fan, so I don’t know much about its history or the intricacies and subtleties of the strategy of the game. But I do like watching the game very much. There’s a flow and rhythm to the game that attracts me. When it is played at its highest level, with great speed and precision in the ball movement, there is a grace and beauty that is hard to beat.
I guess that accounts for it being called The Beautiful Game.
In November the World Cup, which is played every four years, begins and this year the national team from Wales has qualified for the first time since 1958.
Welsh folks my age have never seen a team wearing the Red Dragon of their national flag in the ultimate tournament. So, it is understandably a big deal in that part of the world.
I thought I would share a clip of Welsh actor Michael Sheen in a recent appearance on a popular British sports quiz show, A League of Their Own, which was originally hosted by James Corden for quite some time. Sheen is asked what he might say to the team in the locker room to motivate before their matches. In the tradition of the other great Welsh actors, such as Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and so many more, Sheen does not disappoint.
It has me rooting for those Red Dragons in the Cup. Go, Dragons!
Redtree Times 