FOCUS ON THE FIFA MINNOWS PART ONE - SAN MARINO AND ANGUILLA

After the International week of fixtures I thought it would be good to look at how the lower ranked teams in FIFA are doing. Here we look at San Marino and Anguilla-

At present SAN MARINO are ranked at 210 and are officially bottom of the ranking system. La Serenissima, as they are nicknamed, have still not won a competitive fixture in their history since they started playing in 1990. 

After their 5-0 defeat at Wembley last mid-week they have lost 0-3 to Hungary who scored in the 13th, 71st and 88th minute of the game. Yesterday they lost to Albania and held out until the 63rd and 85th minute when their opponents netted their two goals. 

Since 2015 they have scored the following goals - 

Matteo Vitaioli v Lithuania on 8th September 2015 in a 2-1 away defeat UEFA Euro qualifer which was their first away goal in a competitive game since Nicola Albani scored against Latvia in 2001 in a World Cup Qualifier. 

Mattia Stefanelli v Norway on 11th October 2016 in a 4-1 away WCQ defeat. 

Mirko Palazzi v Azerbraijan on 4th September 2017 in a 5-1 away WCQ defeat. 

Filippo Berardi v Kazakhstan on 16th November 2019 in a 1-3 home UEFA Euro qualifier. 

San Marino's next game comes in September in a "battaglia dei pesciolini" when they visit ANDORRA in a 2022 WCQ UEFA Group I game.  

Could this be the game when San Marino finally win? Andorra are FIFA ranked 151 but have only ever won three competitive fixtures against Macedonia in 2004 and Hungary in 2017 in World Cup Qualifiers and in a Euro qualifier against Moldova in 2019 - They have also won three friendly games against Belarus, Albania and San Marino. The 2017 game against San Marino was the only time to the two nations have played each other. 

FORM COMPARISON SINCE THE START OF 2020

TEAM	P	W	D	L	GF-GA	GD	GSPG	GCPG	RANKING AVG OPPONENTS
SAN MARINO	9	0	2	7	0-20	-20	0	2.22	117.78
ANDORRA	11	0	2	9	3-28	-25	0.27	2.55	95.27

As you can see both teams haven't won since the start of 2020 with Andorra having a slightly worse defensive record but they have played against teams ranked on an average of 95 compared to San Marino at 117. 

Next up in the FIFA rankings are ANGUILLA who have played International football since 1985 and is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. After two games played in the CONCACAF WCQ Group D they have already been eliminated with defeats to Barbados and Dominican Republic - they still have games against Panama and Dominica to play in June.  Anguilla has a estimated population of around 14,700 compared to San Marino at 33,600 so Manager Stern John has a limited number of players to chose from. Like many of the Caribbean Island teams they pick a number of players from English football who qualify to play. 

In the recent squad they have Calvin Morgan of Hellenic League Chavley Sports, Luke Paris of Windsor, Kian Duncan of Burnham who made his debut in the games and Cyrus Vanterpool who plays for Frimley Green - He is well known in the non-league local game having played for North Greenford United, Southall, Bedfont & Feltham and AFC Hayes.  

Stern John was recently appointed in November 2020 and is, of course, well known to English football fans from his time playing with Nottingham Forest, Birmingham City, Coventry City, Derby County, Sunderland, Southampton, Bristol City, Crystal Palace, Ipswich Town and Solihull Moors. He did manage Central FC in Trinidad and Tobago from 2017 to 2020 prior to joining up with Anguilla. He is the record scorer for The Soca Warriors with 70 goals in 115 games from 1995 to 2011. 

Anguilla's last victory came back in 2010 when they won 2-1 against Saint Martin in a CONCACAF Caribbean Cup qualification game. Saint Martin are not members of FIFA so not eligible to enter the World Cup Qualifiers. They are not to be confused with Sint Maarten National Team which represents the Dutch half of Saint Martin. Saint Martin represent the French half of the Island. 

One of their most recent games (they didn't play in 2020) was a 15-0 defeat to Trinidad & Tobago in a friendly game played in November 2019 - Marcus Joseph scored five goals in this game. It was Anguilla's record defeat in their history. 

I think it would be great to have a game between San Marino and Anguilla arranged for sometime in the future. I wonder which team would win? Some pundits and fans say if San Marino played in the CONCACAF region they would win more games than they would lose.