Worst In The World: Magnificent Montserrat!

Friday 22 March 2013

Magnificent Montserrat!

9th September 2012

Stade Pierre Aliker, Fort-de-France, Martinique. Att. 120

British Virgin Islands 0-7 Montserrat

Well I don’t know what to say! Not only have Montserrat avoided defeat for the first time since joining FIFA in 1996, they’ve also got a first win and done it in fine style. A 7-0 victory is simply astounding.

The breakthrough came with an own goal after half an hour from Jamal Sargeant, which was swiftly followed by a brace from Marlon Campbell, after which there was no looking back.

Four more second half goals followed and I can only hope that the Montserrat team went on an almighty bender after this as they certainly earned it.

British Virgin Islands (0) 0

Montserrat (3) 7 Jamal Sargeant o.g. 33, Marlon Campbell 35, 45, Darryl Roach 49, Bradley Woods-Gamess 53, Ellis Remy 71, 87

British Virgin Islands – Desire Butler (Vesquever Frett 68), Gregory James, Jevone Demming, Rushedo Robinson, Andre Ryan, Troy Caesar, Javier Smith (Christopher Telemaque 36), Jamal Sargeant, James Shearman, Fladimir Septus (Errol Wellington 59), Carlos Septus

Montserrat – Jermaine Sweeney, Nyron Dyer, Marlon Campbell, Clifford Newy-Harris, Dean Mason, Dale Lee, Darryl Roach (Ellis Remy 70), Terrell Miller, Kelvin Ponde, Junior Mendes, Bradley Woods-Gamess (Jaylee Hodgson 55)

In the other match, Suriname fought from 2-0 down to grab a late equaliser and draw 2-2 with Martinique, a result which sends both teams through to the next round of qualification. Montserrat finish a hugely creditable third, and more importantly will be saying farewell to Worst in the World status in the next FIFA rankings.

Final Standings: Pl. GD Pts.

1. Martinique 3 +21 7

2. Suriname 3 +10 7

3. Montserrat 3 -4 3

4. British Virgin Islands 3 -27 0

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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.