England play Wales in Group B on Tuesday evening. The English with 4 points to get into the playoffs just need not to lose to their neighbors with a difference of more than 4 goals, but the team of Gareth Bale, which has only 1 point in Qatar so far, needs a miracle to leave the group: a victory and a draw in a parallel match.

England and Wales will meet for the first time in the World Cup. The last meeting in big tournaments happened in 2016: at the Euro, the English beat the Welsh 2-1.

Before Tuesday's match, Gareth Southgate explained why the rivalry between the two countries is so fundamental: Because they are here, and we are right nearby. This happens with all neighboring countries.

Why do they even play with each other if they are part of the same country of Great Britain?

We understand the history of relations between British neighbors.

The modern United Kingdom consists of four parts: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each country has different legal statuses, administrative division systems and governing bodies. So elections to the parliaments of Scotland and Wales mostbet-az90-giris.com are held under different systems, and England does not have its own legislative body at all, and it reports directly to the British Parliament.

Two thousand years ago, the territory modern Wales and England was inhabited by British tribes. These Celts were significantly inferior in military power to the Roman legions that came to Britain in the 40s of our era, but managed to put up decent resistance, so it took 30 years for the final subjugation of Wales by the Roman Empire.

The Romans throughout For three centuries they built their own forts in the region, established Roman law and successfully mined gold, copper and lead here. In the 4th century, Christianity came to Wales, Latin became the official language, and although the common people for the most part continued to speak common British (the predecessor of the Welsh language), the few Welsh nobility increasingly considered themselves residents of the Roman Empire, and did not dream of an independent Wales.

The Romans left Britain in the 5th century, and the region broke up into several independent kingdoms, which had to fight with the Anglo-Saxon tribes who came from the continent. The western lands, where the Welsh could hide in the highlands, proved more resilient to invaders, and by the 8th century, local kingdoms had reclaimed territories roughly equivalent to modern Wales. Offa's Wall appeared on the eastern border, so the king in western England separated his lands from the Welsh (by analogy with Hadrian's Wall, which divided Scotland and England in the north). Now the administrative border between Wales and England runs mainly along it.