The smallest country in the world, Vatican City, founded its national football team in 1972, but until now cannot boast of a victory in international matches. Not surprisingly - a state with only 618 inhabitants finds it difficult to form a competitive national team, the website "Goal" wrote. The attitude of the Vatican team is also shown in words. "It is better to lose a game playing well, than to win showing a poor game," Monsignor Luis Ladaria Ferreris said before a friendly match with Monaco in 2014. The Vatican team does not enter the FIFA rankings, as it is not a member of the organization, but it occupies the 220th place in the ELO rankings among classified 239 teams. However, football is not forgotten in the smallest country on the planet - there are eight football teams formed here, whose players make up the national team. However, contrary to popular myths, priests do not play in the Vatican team. For example, in 2014, the team's star was called 35-year-old veteran Alessandro Quarta, a state cleric who used to play football professionally in lower Italian leagues. The team has been led by famous coaches, albeit only in friendly matches. In 2010, Giovanni Trapattoni coached the Vatican team against Italian policemen. Since its international debut in 1994, the Vatican national team has played many matches, reaching zero levels against the San Marino reserve team, and the last match (2:2) was against the Rieti regional team. The match, like most home games, took place at the "Campo Pio XI" stadium in Rome, next to the Vatican, accommodating 500 spectators. Here were also the most famous Vatican football victories - 5:1 against the amateurs from Switzerland's "SV Vollmond" club in 2006 and 1:0 against Germany's "Wittenberg" team in 2015. However, painful defeats have also been etched into the team's records - a 1:8 defeat to both the eighth team in the Lichtenstein league, the "Azzuri Schaan," and the "Weisweiler Elf" team, made up of former Monchengladbach "Borussia" players. As soon as the coronavirus subsides, the Vatican team plans to play against the Monaco national team again. Perhaps then luck will be on their side?
