It’s a common concept in South American football, and makes an appearance in Europe too: the seasonal champion.

In German there’s kudos to be earned by being crowned the Winter Champions, the leaders of the Bundesliga when it breaks for the Christmas break.

It’s in South America that the idea really takes off, though. The norm is for countries to have two league championships in a season – the Apertura (opening) and Clausura (closing) championships. Sometimes there are two champions (as in Colombia), sometimes there’s a play-off between the two champions to determine the seasonal winner (Ecuador, for example) and sometimes there’s a Community Shield-style curtain raiser to the next year’s Apertura which has a similar level of prestige. i.e. not much. (Mexico).

If we were to do the same in the Adran Premier, then Wrexham would be heading into the final match with TNS with a title at stake. Having heroically grabbed the final spot in the top half in the final minute of Phase One, we have taken the mini-tournament between the best teams in the division by the throat.

It might signify nothing in real terms, but it tells us a lot about what we’ve achieved this season, and what is hopefully to come. We’ve gone toe-to-toe with the best, in only our second season in the top tier, and shown how far we’ve come.

Even if we lost to TNS on Sunday, which would mean we finish in fourth place, I’d still say we’ve made more of a statement than last season when we came third. After all, we came into 2025 having never beaten either of the big two, Swansea and Cardiff.

Those days suddenly feel like the distant past; last Sunday’s superb performance against the champions meant that we’d completed the Phase Two double over them, having lost our previous eight encounters. Swansea, of course, were beaten in the two most pleasing ways – a thumping victory, and then a dramatic last minute winner.

We’ve proven – perhaps most crucially to ourselves – that we can go toe-to-toe with the best in Welsh football. Now we can go into the Welsh Cup Final and next season with confidence, whether we are Clausura Champions or not!