San Marino

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, RonnieTodger said:

Lets hope Eddie Hearn can make San Marino vs India 

Hahah laughed out loud at this. Great thread as well, keep it up all!

[Bilo]

12 hours ago, Bilo said:

India are competitive against teams who are better than those who routinely beat San Marino. They're also 75 places above them in the world rankings, and the quality of teams both sides play is taken into account when calculating their points total. A 1-0 win against Liechtenstein or Gibraltar does not give the same boost that a 1-0 win against Spain or France does.

 

It's weird that you're so angry about the possibility that San Marino's world ranking isn't an accident and they are in fact a very poor side. 

 

10 hours ago, Graceroad said:

Of Course SM are a poor side never side otherwise. My point remains though that while San Marino play the heavyweights  of world football India play against Sri Lanka Pakistan Afghanistan Cambodia Nepal Hong Kong etc . All those sides are of a similar standard  so all pick  up wins which is why they are higher in the world rankings.

 

8 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

The world rankings take into account the standard of the opposition.  A team that draws with Denmark, say, gets more credit than one than beats Bhutan.

The FIFA rankings system is pretty complex, but a team is not going to be ranked 80 places higher simply because they play crap opposition. They regularly hold their own against the likes of Australia and Qatar, both of whom have recently won the Asian Cup. They tend to lose by a couple of goals even against decent opposition. 

 

Contrast this with the fact that San Marino play similarly weak sides in the Nations League and have a record of W1 D2 L13 against Belarus, Luxembourg, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and Malta. 

[Graceroad]

10 hours ago, Bilo said:

 

 

The FIFA rankings system is pretty complex, but a team is not going to be ranked 80 places higher simply because they play crap opposition. They regularly hold their own against the likes of Australia and Qatar, both of whom have recently won the Asian Cup. They tend to lose by a couple of goals even against decent opposition. 

 

Contrast this with the fact that San Marino play similarly weak sides in the Nations League and have a record of W1 D2 L13 against Belarus, Luxembourg, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and Malta. 

My last word on the subject  because we are going tound in circles .India very rarely play Australia lost 2_0 last time Denmark who are stronger then Australia beat SM 2_1 Finland  similar  level also won by the same scoreline.. India may or not be better then SM my point being that if SM played fixtures against Cambodia  Hong Kong  Sri Lanka Pakistan etc  they would pick up wins  maybe not always but they would win a few

[Bilo]

12 hours ago, Graceroad said:

My last word on the subject  because we are going tound in circles .India very rarely play Australia lost 2_0 last time Denmark who are stronger then Australia beat SM 2_1 Finland  similar  level also won by the same scoreline.. India may or not be better then SM my point being that if SM played fixtures against Cambodia  Hong Kong  Sri Lanka Pakistan etc  they would pick up wins  maybe not always but they would win a few

You're cherrypicking.

 

San Marino may have kept Denmark down to 2-1, a scoreline considered embarrassing by Danish fans and a very poor performance, but they also recently lost 6-0 to Estonia. 

 

Plus, as said, they have won 1 game in 16 since the Nations League was set up against Belarus, Luxembourg, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and Malta. The highest ranked team in the current League D setup is Moldova at 152nd in the world, below teams like Afghanistan, Antigua and Turkmenistan. That's the best team in that level of the Nations League. Gibraltar, who recently beat San Marino and are above them in the world rankings, are below Pakistan, East Timor and Bangladesh. 

[Bilo]

On 06/09/2024 at 11:55, Manwell Pablo said:

 

I'd prefer it if they just staged the world cup qualifying so that happened and only one or two of them actually got through to the final group stage to save fixture congestion.

I'm in two minds about this.

 

On the one hand, UEFA is an outlier in not having preliminary qualifiers to weed out the whipping boys. Somalia and the Seychelles, for example, do not end up in qualifying groups with Morocco and Senegal because they've already been eliminated in earlier rounds.

 

It's also quite clear that the argument that micronations will get better at football if they're regularly playing against world class nations has no bearing given they have shipped double figures to England, Norway, Croatia, Germany, Poland and Belgium. Gibraltar lost 14-0 to France not all that long ago as well. 

 

This being said, their players have the right to represent their country and the moneyspinning games against the major nations keeps their national team extant. It can be invested in grassroots football so there is at least football being played on an organised level in places like Andorra, San Marino and Gibraltar. It's unlikely that a team from one of these nations will ever appear in a major tournament and equally unlikely that they'll turn up in the group stages of the Champions League, but their club teams are getting closer in the Conference League with Andorran and Gibraltarian teams in the playoffs this season, and only 180 minutes away from playing at least six games against the likes of Chelsea and Fiorentina.