Worst In The World: A New Nation Appears - And Swiflty Moves On

Friday 22 March 2013

A New Nation Appears - And Swiflty Moves On - 10th July 2012

10^th July 2012

Juba Stadium, Juba, South Sudan

South Sudan 2-2 Uganda

A new nation will appear in the next FIFA rankings, but have already proved themselves a cut above the very bottom of the rankings table by securing a draw in their very first international match. South Sudan will enter the rankings table a few places off the bottom thanks to a 2-2 draw at home to Uganda in a friendly match in capital city Juba, as part of the celebrations of their first anniversary of independence.

Uganda are the current East and Central African champions so a draw is no mean feat, although Uganda were down to 10 men for the majority of the match after a red card halfway through the first half. South Sudan will be taking part in the same regional tournament later this year when Uganda defend their title.

South Sudan twice came from behind to equalise, their goals coming from a Richard Justin penalty and a James Joseph header.

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What's This All About?

It’s all too easy to focus on the successful teams in international football, Spain, Brazil, Germany etc. We all know what’s going on with them, usually winning, and can easily follow their crowning glories on the international stage. But what about life at the other end of the scale?

FIFA’s world rankings allow us to easily see who is officially the worst national football team in the world, and this site simply follows that team (or teams) until they manage to drag themselves kicking and screaming from the foot of the world rankings to be replaced by someone even worse. And then we follow them instead.

In the past the FIFA rankings made it clear who was the very worst of all, as the complex ranking formula rarely caused a tie for last place. Since 2006 the formula has been rather simplified, I won’t go into detail but many factors were removed to make things easier to understand. The result though is that down at the bottom of the rankings we often now have a cluster of ineptitude (or should it be a splat of ineptitude?) with several nations judged to equally as useless as each other for the simple reason that they lose all their games. In the past they’d have received some credit for a narrow defeat against a top side, but no more. To get off the bottom they are going to have to win or draw a match, something that often proves beyond most of them.

We’re here to highlight their struggles against hopelessness, and bring the occasional heart warming story of marginal success.