Gibraltar 0-0 Slovakia
Estadio Algarve, Faro, Portugal
International Friendly
19th November 2013
Well it looks as though Gibraltar aren't destined to become a Worst in the World as they sealed a magnificent 0-0 draw with Slovakia in their first official international. Official in terms of being a UEFA member that is. They aren't members of FIFA so technically wouldn't have a world ranking anyway, but avoiding defeat means there is no debate about whether they are one of our basement boys or not.
Thursday 21 November 2013
Friday 1 November 2013
Gibraltar Announce First Official Fixtures
While we are
yet to know if FIFA will accept Gibraltar as a full member, and therefore give
them a World Ranking, UEFA’s newest national team have announced their first
set of official UEFA sanctioned fixtures.
These
matches are preparation for Gibraltar’s first foray into European Championship
qualification, the draw for which will take place early in 2014.
The
following fixtures have been arranged:
19th
November 2013 Faro, Portugal v. Slovakia
1st
March 2014 Victoria
Stadium, Gibraltar v. Faroe
Islands
5th
March 2014 Victoria
Stadium, Gibraltar v. Estonia
26th
May 2014 Tallinn,
Estonia v.
Estonia
Saturday 19 October 2013
A European Nations’ League?
It emerged recently that a suggestion made at
UEFA’s latest summit meeting was to replace international friendly dates with a
European Nations’ League, perhaps made up of nine division of six, with
promotion and relegation.
This seems great for the top nations, with a
regular supply of enticing fixtures, but seems rather less alluring to the
middle ranked nations. Playing the other
mid ranked teams for the prospect of climbing from Division 6 to Division 5
isn’t the stuff of dreams.
But what about the minnows? Imagine a Division 9 made up of
Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar. Regular matches between these teams would
surely provide a chance of gradual improvement, more so than being thrashed by
even mid-ranking teams as happens to San Marino in particular.
World Cup Qualifier: San Marino 0-8 Ukraine
15th
October 2013
San
Marino 0-8 Ukraine
World
Cup Qualifier
Stadio
Olimpico, Serravalle, San Marino (Att. 1,268)
Well at least it wasn’t 9 again. That’s about all I can say about that. What was 9 however, was the number of players
San Marino had left on the pitch by the end – red cards for Mirko Palazzi and
Alessandro Della Valle.
Both of those players also gave away
penalties, Della Valle in the first half to allow Ukraine to open the scoring
after 13 minutes, and Palazzi n the second, for which he earned his marching
orders with over half an hour still to go.
Della Valle’s red card came in the final minute for a second yellow in
the aftermath of Ukraine’s 8th goal.
It wasn’t enough for Ukraine to take the top
spot in the group and automatic qualification, thanks to England’s 2-0 win over
Poland, but they head into the play offs with plenty of hooting practice under
their belts.
As for San Marino, they of course showed
only glimpses of endeavour. On one
occasion having gone a goal behind they did send several players up field for
an attacking free kick. What
happened? Ukraine cleared the free kick,
broke quickly into the sparsely populated San Marino half and promptly scored
their second, while the San Marino defence tried to hurry back and re-organise.
Even when they try and score it just results
in another goal against.
So the end of another campaign sees San
Marino with another 10 straight defeats to their name, and a minus 53 goal
difference to boot. They did of course
manage 1 goal against Poland recently, but other than that it was a total blank
all round.
Where do they go from here? Well the facile answer is that they go into a
European Championship qualifying campaign and do it all over again. But more than that, surely they need some
other focus for their footballing ambitions?
Being humped on a regular basis can’t be fun. What is to be lost by some of Europe’s true
minnows arranging a few friendly fixtures against each other to at least have
the opportunity to play some more attacking football once in a while? And perhaps there would even be the chance of
a victory every now and then. Otherwise,
just what is the point?
I’m not saying this trying to suggest that
San Marino shouldn’t be taking part.
Quite the opposite in fact. They,
and all other nations, should be encouraged to compete as best they can in
World Cup and European Championships alike.
But in addition to that an opportunity to try and win a few other games
might be a worthwhile exercise, not only for trying to climb off the foot of
the world rankings.
San Marino face difficulties that our other
basement boys, Bhutan and Turks & Caicos Islands, don’t have, namely never
competitively facing opposition that is not far above their standard and
therefore potentially beatable. They
will always be in a different group from all other minnows and facing far
bigger teams. Defeat will follow defeat.
Similarly tiny Gibraltar will be on the UEFA
scene shortly. Surely a challenge match
between San Marino and Gibraltar is the stuff of dreams for champions of the
underdog? I can only dream.
Final
Group H Standings
1. England Pl. 10 Pts. 22
2. Ukraine 10 21
3. Montenegro 10 15
4. Poland 10 13
5. Moldova 10 11
6. San
Marino 10 0
World Cup Qualifier: Moldova 3-0 San Marino
11t
October 2013
Moldova
3-0 San Marino
World
Cup Qualifier
Zimbru
Stadium, Chisinau, Moldova (Att. 5,000)
San Marino didn’t do too badly in Chisinau
on Friday, lasting at 0-0 until beyond half-time. Unfortunately a repeat of last month’s goal
scoring heroics wasn’t to be, and ten minutes into the second half Moldova
finally got their breakthrough.
Viorel Frunza beat Aldo Simoncini, who was restored to the team between the San Marino posts, after good work from Alexandru Antoniuc. Sidorenco added a second after another goal mouth scramble, before banging home the third himself a minute from time.
So all in all not a bad showing from San
Marino; a goalless first half, and keeping the score to 2 before the final
minute. No goals scored though, for
shame.
Group H now looks like this...
England Pl.
9 Pts. 19
Ukraine 9 18
Montenegro 9 15
Poland 9 13
Moldova 9 8
San Marino 9 0
All that remains now is for San Marino to
act as sacrificial lambs to the slaughter against Ukraine on Tuesday
night. Ukraine will of course need a win
to try and steal top spot from England, who face Poland on the same night.
Can San Marino avoid another 9 goal
humping? Let’s hope so.
End of the World – October 2013
San Marino’s final two fixtures in this
World Cup campaign take place in the coming days, with a visit to the next
worst team in the group, Moldova, on Friday followed by a home match with
Ukraine next week.
Coming off a goal scoring performance last
time out against Poland, San Marino will be looking to repeat the unlikely feat
in Chisinau. Surely they can’t bang in
another one can they?
They’ve not managed to breach the Moldovan
net in four previous meetings so hopes aren’t high, but Moldova are rather
inept themselves so let’s not rule out all hope.
Earlier in this campaign, Moldova came to
Serravalle and won 2-0, so I would hope that San Marino can at the very least
keep the game fairly competitive. The
first meeting between the two was even closer, a mere 1-0 defeat in 2000.
Previous meetings:
26th April 2000 Friendly Serravalle San Marino 0-1 Moldova
12th Oct 2010 EC Qual Serravalle San Marino 0-2 Moldova
11th Oct 2011 EC Qual Chisinau Moldova 4-0 San Marino
16th Oct 2012 WC Qual Serravalle San Marino 0-2 Moldova
But then lurking a few days later is a
meeting with mighty Ukraine, who of course hammered San Marino 9-0 only last
month. Let’s just say that anything less
than that will be a decent outcome for San Marino. Ukraine will go into this game needing a win
to try and steal top spot, and automatic qualification, from England, so they
are unlikely to let up on our hapless heroes.
Previous meetings:
6th Sept 2013 WC Qual Lviv Ukraine 9-0 San Marino
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