Worst In The World: October 2014

Friday, 10 October 2014

Euro 2016: England 5-0 San Marino

Thursday 9th October 2014

European Championships Qualifying Group E

Wembley Stadium, London, England

England 5-0 San Marino

San Marino suffered a 5-0 defeat at Wembley that actually saw a little more progressive play from the boys in blue than had been the case in their previous recent matches with England. While not threatening very often or very convincingly, they did at least have a couple of efforts on goal and looked to get forward when the opportunity arose. It didn't arise often of course; there were repeated occasions when there was simply no out ball. But it was noticeable to me that under coach Pierangelo Manzeroli that San Marino are willing to try a little more than simply to frustrate.

Manzeroli has had a little but of success (it's all relative of course...) with the under-21 side, including a victory of Wales not so long ago, and it is encouraging what he is looking to implement with the senior side.

San Marino Back In Action

European Championships Qualifiers

England v. San Marino
Thursday 9th October 2014

European Championships Qualifying Group E

Wembley Stadium, London, England

San Marino continue their Euro 2016 qualifying campaign with the latest edition of what is becoming something of a regular fixture in European qualifying. Having met in the last round of qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup, the two sides had also previously met famously in 1994 World Cup qualifying.

On those occasions, England won by six goals in both matches but of course it was San Marino's goal through David Gualtieri which has remained in everyone's memories; the fastest ever goal in World Cup football. Here it is again for your enjoyment/amusement/embarrassment:

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.