They are the worst football team in the world and have been at the bottom of FIFA’s ranking many times. The Herald once described them as “a team whose official ranking is lower than that of the Bahamas and the Anguilla islands, the level may not be as good as the young people playing outside your home.”
However, such a national team still attracts a large number of fans, and the number of social media fans even exceeds the sum of their national population.
This team is San Marino.
1. How weak is the San Marino national team?
San Marino, a Imperium in imperio surrounded by Italy, covers an area of 61 square kilometers. We can’t measure this kind of country by Tongliao, the standard city measurement unit of the universe, because Tongliao has 59535 square kilometers, which is too vast for San Marino. Even the six towns under Hure Banner in Tongliao city have 420 square kilometers, which is equivalent to 7 San Marino.
Although the land area is only at the township level, San Marino people have been living a quiet and good life through tourism and preferential tax policies. However, 33000 permanent residents severely restricted their football development. When other national teams announce the starting line-up, they will say that there are two players from Manchester United and three players from Liverpool. However, the starting lineup was announced San Marino. The painting style was probably like this: “There are 11 players representing the team today, including a lawyer, two students, three accountants and four shop assistants……”
Yes, although there are also league matches in China San Marino, the participants are basically amateur players from all walks of life. In this case, the five-year college entrance examination in San Marino was at the bottom of the three years, and in the past two years, the 211 member states of FIFA ranked the last.
How weak is the San Marino national team? Since joining the International Football Association family in 1990, they have participated in 196 official competitions in 33 years and achieved a remarkable record of 1 win, 8 draw and 187 loss, the opponent broke the door 808 times, and they scored 28 goals in total. Tragedies are also common. In these years, 49 tennis scores above 0-6 have been scored, and 7 games have been scored more than 10 goals by opponents.
In short, San Marino is this strength. Any professional team is a giant coming into the village or an apostle for them. From 2005 to 2014, they once set a record of ten years of complete defeat, and the whole nation lost.
As we all know, the greatest happiness of football is winning.
Because they always lose, fans founded a fan organization named “never happy” San Marino 2012 “.
Then, this group of “never happy” fans found their own unique source of happiness.
2. The source of happiness for a small country
Support such San Marino absolute fish brisket, the most basic happiness principle is to reduce expectations.
When they shot the main goal, the reaction of the fans was like this.
When they scored, the fans reacted like this.
Someone abroad once made a video of “all goals in the history of San Marino”. Every goal could not even be celebrated. Plus the beginning and end of the film, it took only 5 minutes……
No way, because a victory is hard to find, San Marino fans will celebrate every tiny happiness. They will take the shot as the shooting point, shoot the right goal, the goal is to win, the draw is enough for the whole country to cheer, if you can win…… Home sacrifice never forget to sue naiweng!
In November, 2014, San Marino drew a 0-0 draw in Estonia, ending their embarrassing record of 61 consecutive defeats in ten years. After the match, coach Manzaroli specially asked the fans of “never happy” to make a new banner with the words “half happy”.
Manzaroli said, “people in other countries will not understand what it feels like. A draw made me feel as excited as my daughter was born.”
In 2020, the European League drew a 0-0 draw to Gibraltar in San Marino with one person being sent off. It was the first time in history that it remained undefeated in two consecutive games. In the interview after the game, central defender Rossi cried into tears: “I said I wouldn’t cry, but I still didn’t hold back. This draw, it is A gift we gave to our small and great Motherland (A gift to my small,big,big country).”
This is understandable. After all, San Marino won only one international match. It was far away in 2004, and they beat their opponents 1-0 in the friendly match against the “small country Derby” in Liechtenstein. The whole country is celebrating crazily, and I hate to be granted amnesty to the world.
And European countries also know the strength of San Marino. It’s OK for the fish Brisket Brothers like Estonia and Liechtenstein to be beaten by San Marino, but if any strong team is scored by San Marino, that is simply a national shame.
So who has been nailed to the top of the column of humiliation by San Marino over the years?
The answer is: England.
3. To be happy, you still have to look at England.
On November 17, 1993, England ushered in the life-and-death battle of the World Cup qualifier. Due to the early stage of La Biao, England must meet two conditions to enter the 1994 World Cup. The first is to defeat the opponent with at least 7 goals, and the second is that Poland in the same group needs to defeat Holland. The only good news is that England’s opponent in the last round was San Marino.
That year, it was only the third year of joining the family of the International Football Association in San Marino, and it was definitely the “natural pollution-free, ecological small fish brisket. As a result, the BBC narrator at that time left such an opening statement of the classic eternal stream: “Everyone, audience, welcome to the World Cup qualifier broadcast by Bilson beer. England needs a net win of 7 goals to keep the hope of qualifying. Now, with the whistle of the referee…… OK, England is behind 0-1.”
Yes, San Marino just started a simple goal. Stewart Pierce, the left-back of England, sent out a super huge and low-level mistake, which made David Gualtier, who was a computer major at that time, push and break the door. At the time of scoring, only 8.3 seconds passed before the start of the game.
Although England reversed the match with a score of 7-1 in the end, the six winning goals just stopped themselves outside the World Cup. The next day, the front page of The Mirror reported the match with the title of “Doomsday”. A week later, Graham Taylor, then England coach, resigned sadly.
What is more troublesome is that the 8.3-second goal at the beginning also set the fastest goal record in the World Cup qualifier at that time, and kept it for 14 years in one breath until it was broken by Ben Turk in 2017. Therefore, in the past ten years, England will be pulled out and flogged every time there is a goal in the beginning of the World Cup qualifier. Throughout the history of football, although England has a long and frequent history of losing the chain, the goal scored by San Marino 8.3 seconds has been well-deserved at the top of their humiliation column.
Nowadays, Davide gualtiye, who scored in those days, is already the owner of a computer store. He usually sells video card memory chips or something, but people all over the country still regard him as a legend in football. At Gualtier’s home, there are two commemorative jerseys collected. One was an England jersey, which was given to him by Pierce who made a mistake at that time. The other one is San Marino Jersey, which was given by a Scottish fan, and the number behind it is 8.3.
Even 30 years later, Gualtier is still very popular among Scots. When many Scots come to San Marino for vacation, they will visit gualtiye’s computer shop specially.
In fact, many people like Scottish fans fall in love with San Marino for various reasons. Some of them are Italians, some are Germans, some are Chinese…… So far, the most famous fan account @ SanMarino_FA (also known as San Marino fan number) on Twitter in San Marino is still operated by a young Dutch named Bastianelli. At the age of 19, he was attracted by the special temperament of San Marino to establish this number. The account profile is: “provide the latest news for the most unfortunate football team in the world”.
So far, this Twitter account has more than 63000 fans, which is nearly twice the population of San Marino. Sometimes, Bastianelli would refuse the invitation of his friends to travel because they wanted to watch San Marino matches, “I told them, ‘Sorry, guys, I’m watching the worst national team in the world’ tonight ‘, this is my love and loyalty to this team.”
With the 7-6 defeat to Finland in the European Cup qualifier, the current consecutive winning record in San Marino has maintained 130 games. However, as a San Marino fan, everyone has already had enough patience and self-deprecation spirit, and more importantly, put down the concept of winning and losing and enjoy the purest fun of football. In fact, San Marino Football Association also encourages fans to establish this laid-back mentality. Their domestic league matches have two levels, namely, Serie A1 and Serie A2. But in order to treat football more peacefully, they even canceled the League promotion.
All this does not mean that San Marino people do not love football. On the contrary, the national team member wise Moli Pasta said, “Football is San Marino life.” In order to start the football career from dolls, the San Marino Football Association even has a grand plan-every San Marino new baby born, the Football Association will give the child a national team jersey. At present, there are about 300 newborns every year.
In fact, there are many long-term foreign players in the San Marino League. They all conform to the five-year domestication regulations of FIFA, but the San Marino Football Association has always refused domestication because they think the national team is a symbol of the nation, “Our village team has to use our village people!”
So far, many fans will continue to watch the home games San Marino. They said, “when your team can only score six goals every ten years, you don’t want to miss any of them.”
Therefore, we will see such scenes on the home match day. Eleven players stood on the turf of the San Marino National Stadium, singing the national anthem in the sun. They raised their heads with firm eyes. What they saw was 600 home fans in the stands, which was 2% of the national population.
In this world, football can bring people a lot of happiness. Some people are champion fans, some are team loyal, some are wandering around with their favorite stars, and some are only playing in the World Cup.
However, happiness is happiness, and there is no distinction between high and low. Just like the hero of our story today……
“I am small and weak, but San Marino.”
This kind of happiness is really unique.
Ned/Northwest stand
