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
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