Tonight, England will take on San Marino as part of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, and if history is anything to go by, it will be a drubbing. Over seven encounters, England have won seven and put 42 goals past San Marino, a team traditionally made up of an assortment of farmers and postmen who moonlight as international athletes.
But what these humiliating scorelines fail to tell you is that tiny San Marino (or, to give the country its full name, The Most Serene Republic of San Marino) is also the world’s oldest surviving republic, with one of the world’s highest GDPs per capita, and has a peculiar obsession with stamps. Oh, and Abraham Lincoln was an honorary citizen.
The fifth smallest country in the world, San Marino is a relic of the network of city states that dominated ancient Italy. The country consists of the hilltop town of San Marino (a Unesco World Heritage Site) plus nine smaller towns, or castelli. It has a population just shy of 34,000, and is so tiny that it doesn’t have an airport or a railway station.
Despite its poor transport connections, San Marino is a popular tourist destination. The main town (Citta di San Marino) clings to the slopes of Mount Titano, 2,500 ft (762 m) above sea level, with views across both the Adriatic and Italy’s rolling hinterland. It developed around three medieval fortresses; Guaita, the oldest, was constructed in the 11th century and remains in remarkably good nick thanks, in part, to Orson Welles (more on that later).
Aside from its fortresses and sublime views, San Marino’s top sights include the Basilica di San Marino, an impressive neo-classical church, and the Palazzo Pergami Belluzzi (home to the national museum), which contains more than 5,000 archaeological relics spanning the history of the region. Car-lovers may want to make a beeline for the Ferrari Museum, at the foot of Monte Titano.
And there’s much more to learn about this idiosyncratic microstate. So while witnessing tonight’s inevitable thrashing at the Stadio Olimpico di Serravalle, take a moment to fascinate your friends and family with these ten facts about San Marino.
It is home to the world’s worst football team
Let’s get this one out of the way. San Marino are awful at football. Dire. Dreadful. Officially, the worst. The international team frequently bookends the bottom of the FIFA World Rankings, due to the fact that the national team has won just one game in its history and concedes an average of 4.2 goals per game. After 70 attempts, in April 2004 the team recorded its first and only victory, beating Liechtenstein 1-0 in a friendly, thanks to a fifth-minute goal by Andy Selva (the country’s most capped player and record goalscorer, with eight goals).
England’s record against San Marino is fairly convincing. In seven games, the England national team has scored 42 goals and conceded just one (which was, at the time, the fastest ever international goal, in just 8.3 seconds). Blame Stuart Pearce for the shonky backpass.
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/san-marino/didnt-know-san-marino-home-worlds-worst-football-team/
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Publish date : 2021-11-15 03:00:00
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