I think we could give them a game. By that I mean some forum members - not Watford ! TBF they are all part timers aren’t they ?
This is how the top six, their plastic supporters and the media and pundits view us isn’t it? When we play city/Liverpool etc we are San Marino, a joke, we/they shouldn’t be in the premiership/international football. it’s all about Ian Wright’s etc ego hahahaha this is why they get so cross when we ever beat them.
Yet still… At the World Cup the plastic top 6 supporters will AGAIN expect to win by default as the fans that travel will defile whatever city we play in with bums, piss and twittery and then yet again about 5 countries are obviously better than us Harry Kane getting 4 goals (2 penalties) against a team whose population is about the size of Welwyn Garden City is not proof we can beat Italy, Spain, Germany, the whole of South America etc
TBF we are a professional football team with international players but if we do lose easily to the top teams they probably don’t think much of us . Not a bunch of part timers.. Aren’t the fans who travel mostly fans from less fashionable and lower league clubs ?
In the Impossible Job documentary which was on Channel 4 recently, it was mentioned that England needed a 7-0 win in their final game at San Marino and Poland to beat the Netherlands to qualify for USA '94. In the end they won 7-1 thanks to that infamous ninth second goal by Davide Gualtieri, but it was academic because Holland won 3-1 at Poland. I think we would've been a lot more down about missing out on qualification by one goal if the result in Poland had gone our way! (And sadly, GT would surely have still resigned.)
I really do feel some apathy for San Marino. Why are they so utterly pathetic as a national side? They get trounced every match they play, and it never bothers them at all. I know the side is made of up of part time players who also work a full time job, but is it must be humiliating being the laughing stock of the national side of the game.
I looked up the San Marino starting line-up and subs and it seems not all of them are part-timers, although it's a pretty large percentage. Of the starting line-up, two play in Serie C and one in Serie D, all of the rest play in the Sammarinese Football Championship which is an amateur league. Of the five subs, two play in San Marino in the aforementioned league and the other three play in some non-league division which I think is at the sixth level of the Italian football pyramid. So based on that and tonight's result and those San Marino usually get, the Sammarinese league must be of a really poor standard - at a wild guess no better than level 8 of the English pyramid. Even fellow minnows Luxembourg, Malta and Liechtenstein are more competitive and get the odd shock draw with a big team.
Only Lichtenstein seems like a fair comparison there, given the other nations you mention have +15x bigger populations from which to generate players. It’s basically asking Leighton Buzzard to compete at an international level, using only home grown players.
I doubt anyone in the same situation would turn the opportunity to play for their country and against top international sides down.
Population under 34,000 and only 8000 males between 15 and 54. Although there's probably a lot more with some heritage in Italy, most that are half decent probably don't want to waste their time getting battered every game.
OK but San Marino is an enclave inside mainland Italy which has a great depth of talent, it’s not like a tiny isolated island nation like Maldives or American Samoa. And it’s near Fiorentina and Bologna, both Serie A clubs, and Perugia who minus their money problems is similar historically to us. If Italy can find and develop talented players in and around those places, why can’t San Marino? If they can spot and develop some talent that’s good enough to play in Serie C and above, they could form a team that still may never qualify for anything, but wouldn’t get thrashed most games.
They have a population of 38,000 or so. Location isn’t really relevant. When the talent pool is that small, it really doesn’t matter where you are. You can only develop players who were born/have family links inside that tiny enclave.
We beat a South American team in the knockout phase of the last World Cup and beat Germany just this year in the Euro’s. Sure, we haven’t yet crossed the finishing line 1st in recent tournaments but we have come dammed close. I think the days of thinking England will routinely fail against other nations of note in tournaments is gone by-and-large. At least for now anyway. We are genuinely one of the best international teams around and are better/on a par with many of the historical more successful nations right now. It’s always been ridiculous that England fared so highly in the bookies odds - but don’t think anyone could argue now.
Meanwhile Italy are in the qualifiers, I’d love to be like them or France, veering from winning tournaments to struggling to, or not qualifying for the next one. Instead we’re now ruthlessly consistent but still don’t win anything.
No, I’d rather win the odd tournament, and then not qualify (like Italy and France often do) than just be boringly consistent like we are now and never actually win a thing.
Well, give it a chance... We've only recently lost the last major final we were in, having not reached one for 55 years. Maybe come back to this in 14 months time?
But wouldn’t you rather have won it and then not qualify for the next one, like Italy might? We won’t get such a kind draw three tournaments in a row, I’m more than happy to come back to this in 14 months time when we most definitely will not have won the World Cup.
Well, yes, given the choice. But we didn't and we can't change history. So then, surely the best position to be in is to qualify for the next one to give yourselves another chance?
It was really just a flippant comment about how teams like Italy can turn it on and win tournaments and then just a few months later struggle to qualify for the next one.
OK, fair enough. I think your comment about boring consistency actually applies more to the pre-Southgate era. We would breeze through qualifying then and end up being poor, or at best average, in the tournament itself. At least now we have demonstrated the capacity to reach the sharp end.
Even though Serie D is Italy’s 4th tier, it’s way below ours and is non-professional. We are so lucky in this country to have such depth in our game.
Marine of the Northern Premier League Division One West (tier 8) against Tottenham last season- not a full-strength Tottenham team I'll give you, but who were still full of players who are plenty good enough at the top level, was the biggest gulf in terms of the English football pyramid in a long time (at the time of the draw it pitted the top and bottom ranked teams in the draw!), yet they were more competitive than San Marino. Chorley in the National League North only allowed shot on target against Wolves, unfortunately, it was Wolves' winner from about 30 yards!
Pretty sure despite their smaller population, that San Marino are better than those teams. OK, San Marino got hit for double figures yesterday, but that was by a top team rather than a second tier international side like those teams often do!
