England v San Marino: How do you improve world’s worst national team? Take a look at football history….
The following written content by Daniele Verri
There have been few moments of pride in San Marino’s football history.
It is, admittedly, a relatively short history.
Although its football federation (FSGC) was founded in 1931, San Marino only received affiliation to Fifa and Uefa in 1988 and its national team’s first official game took place in November 1990.
With a population of around 30,000, the microstate on the hills above the Italian Riviera has a tiny pool of potential players.
The FSGC can count around 1,800 registered players, among them players from futsal, youth, female and male football, compared to more than 14 million registered by the Football Association of England, who they meet at Wembley on Thursday in a World Cup qualifier.
As of today, out of the 450 players taking part in their 15-club non-professional league, only 100 are in possession of a San Marino passport and fewer than a handful play in the lower leagues of Italian professional football.
The result of all these pessimistic stats is the worst Fifa ranking in the world, behind the likes of Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and the US Virgin Islands.
“Football has always had a social aspect for the people here,” says Andy Selva, San Marino’s all-time most-capped player and most prolific scorer with 73 appearances and eight goals, including one which secured their only win, in a friendly against Liechtenstein on 28 April 2004.
He believes the population see the national team as something to enjoy, rather than live and breathe, which has affected the evolution of the side.
“What we lack are technical, tactical and managerial knowledge, which would allow us to improve the overall quality of our football,” says Selva.
And although it’s not easy with limited resources, the FSGC started the process of trying to fill those voids with the appointment of Franco Varrella in January 2018.
Varrella is a well-travelled manager across Italy, so how is he trying to do the impossible and attempt to make minnows San Marino a competitive force?
‘Playing Germany or England was a reason for exchanging shirts’
Despite being born just 20km away in Rimini, Varrella is a man you would not expect in San Marino. Read more from BBC.
Subscribe here
