Reuters Soccer Blog
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Time for international minnows to swim in their own pond?
Most sports fans love an underdog but I suspect many people watching Liechtenstein’s approach against Scotland on Tuesday will have been relieved for the Scots when Stephen McManus popped up to head his side’s winner in the seventh minute of stoppage time.
In soccer, for a minor team to hold or even beat one of the big boys, there is usually some spoiling involved and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, there is a difference between robust tackling and honest battling and some of the things on show at Hampden Park on Tuesday – and all too often before.
At times on Tuesday Liechtenstein’s approach seemed to consist of keeping the ball out of play as much as possible, while making at least two tackles that might be classed somewhere between violent and career-threatening. It was a surprise that they ended the match with 11 men still on the pitch.
Another minnow, Andorra have been known to take a similarly “Sunday League” approach, hacking their way through qualifying campaigns that are usually, in all senses of the word, pointless.
With leading players and managers complaining that teams play too many games, where is the justification for allowing San Marino to act as cannon fodder in World Cup and European Championship qualifying?
With the breakup of the Soviet Union and splintering of Yugoslavia there has already been a hefty expansion of teams in UEFA. Could it be time for the no-hopers to be trimmed.
Yes, they occasionally stonewall their way to a point along the way and there are occasional moments of glory such as when the Faroe Islands beat Austria in their first official competitive game but those results are so outnumbered by the relentless beatings that it is hard to see any justification in the teams’ inclusion.
Time to take minnows off the international menu
Now that the dust has settled on the Ronaldo story (at least until he actually signs) I wanted to go back to something that bothered me about last week’s on-field action.
Former England striker Jimmy Greaves summed it up quite well at half-time during England’s 6-0 thrashing of Andorra in a World Cup qualifier.
“Have you ever seen a team this bad at Wembley?” Greaves, one of several members of the 1996 World Cup squad to be given belated winners medals after missing the final, said when interviewed by ITV.
Greaves went on to question the sanity of the near 60,000 fans who bought tickets to watch England beat a side that would struggle to survive in the fourth tier of English club football.
It wasn’t quite what ITV wanted to hear after desperately trying to stoke interest in the miss-match but the outspoken Greaves made a very good point before we were returned hurriedly to the studio.
The likes of Andorra and San Marino may belong to the FIFA family but they offer absolutely nothing to football at this level.
There sole objective is to avoid a double-figure thrashing which they usually achieve by positioning 11 players behind the ball and never venturing over the halfway line.
The England vs Andorra motch last week went beyond being a mismatch. The writer is correct, it should never have happened. The stadium they held the match in – Wembley, obviously! – can hold more than the entire population of Andorra. Surely this is ridiculous? My home town has more people living in it than Andorra can draw upon. These games are a waste of everybody’s time. http://www.loserscomesecond.com/
Faroe Islands werent awful against Italy but I guess they did lose 5-0. Amazingly they are 118 in the rankings, pretty high really. My objection to them competing is that it is not a country. It’s part of Denmark. But then England isn’t a sovereign country either….