There was a distinctly Welsh feel to Round 4 of this season’s Carabao Cup, which took place last month. Championship side Swansea City hosted Premier League giants Manchester City. And a north–south Wales rivalry was resurrected when Cardiff City visited the Racecourse to take on Wrexham, for their first meeting since 2004.

At the Swansea.com Stadium, the home team competed well and briefly threatened to cause an upset when Gonçalo Franco placed a shot from the edge of the 18-yard box, beyond the reach of James Trafford in the Man City goal, off the post, and into the net. That was to be one of only two Swansea shots all game. The visitors put themselves back into control with six minutes of the first half remaining when Jérémy Doku levelled with a deflected strike.

The Swans did well to withstand the Man City pressure for much of the second half, until two late goals from Omar Marmoush and Rayan Cherki sent the 8-time winners of the competition through to the quarter-finals. There were only 1,626 in attendance the last time Wrexham faced Cardiff at the Racecourse, in the short-lived FAW Premier Cup. The intervening 21 years have been dramatic, however, and much has changed for both clubs.

Swans’ best efforts not enough

Cardiff have moved stadium, been to the Premier League, reached two cup finals, changed club colours, and been relegated to League One. Wrexham’s recent, well-documented, rise has seen them reach the Championship and overtake Cardiff in the footballing pyramid. With much change, and much at stake, both fanbases will say they have legitimate claims to being the biggest club in Wales; a sellout crowd greeted the teams this time.

Both managers made changes to their starting lineups, but it was the visitors who best settled into the occasion and dominated the early exchanges. Their superiority was converted into a goal within the first 15 minutes — Yousef Salech followed in on an Omari Kellyman shot to notch his sixth goal of the season and give Cardiff a deserved lead. The visitors’ supremacy continued and should have produced at least one more goal before the break; City talisman Rubin Colwill hit the bar from an excellent free kick, and Ronan Kpakio spurned a golden opportunity from a header.

With the home fans subdued, Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson looked to his bench and made a triple substitution, which paid dividends within seven second-half minutes. Ex-Bluebird Kieffer Moore equalised for the home side in typical fashion, powering in a header from inside the 6-yard box and letting the away end know where his loyalties now lie. Cardiff were nonetheless unrattled, and with twenty minutes left on the clock a deep cross found defender Will Fish, who clinically side-footed a volley into the bottom corner, for what proved to be the decisive goal. “One team in Wales” was the chant that boomed from the away end after fulltime.

There may be a debate on whether it can be considered a “derby”, but there is no doubting the significance of this Welsh rivalry to City fans. The well-deserved reward for Cardiff is a home quarter-final tie, against world champions Chelsea, to be played in December. The last meeting between the sides, in 2019, is unlikely to invoke many pleasant memories for City fans; a controversial late Chelsea winner was instrumental in relegating the Bluebirds from the Premier League.

So, with a chance for revenge and a place in the semifinal for only their third time at stake, there will be no shortage of motivation for Cardiff. Promotion from League One might be their main objective for this season, but City fans may be forgiven for starting to dream of Wembley.