In November last year, the national museum in San Marino, the world’s fifth smallest country, opened a new exhibition showcasing the national football heritage, titled “Challenging the Impossible”.
Within a week, staff were already planning expansion when the lowest of FIFA’s 210 ranked nations completed the challenge a little quicker than anyone expected.
On November 18, San Marino secured promotion from fourth and bottom of the Nations League with a 3-1 win in Liechtenstein, attracting the interest of not only the Titanus Museum but visitors from across much of Europe.
Part-time footballers, full-time plumbers, shop workers and graphic designers, in the case of most player Matteo Vitaioli, were making national news on the continent.Move over Spain, it’s San Marino’s moment.
The country, who had waited 20 years to add to their record of one win, made it two in a month to win their group ahead of Liechtenstein and Gibraltar, who had beaten Romania and Wales respectively earlier in 2024.
Not everyone needed to be alerted to San Marino’s stunning rise. The microstate had already become a cult figure further afield, with a growing number of observers reveling in the fate of a country where even scoring, of which they had managed just 33 in their entire history, remained. was news.
Much of their growing casual following has been fueled by the San Marino Fan Account, which as of June 2019 has amassed nearly 200,000 followers on X, posting the unabashedly upbeat, borderline fanatical and most consistently block-cap posts of every event in the country. games, always sure that San Marino’s next opponents will have to pay for their latest defeat.
“MAKING HISTORY WITH THREE GOALS IN A ROW” was a particularly enthusiastic example in November 2023, garnering more than two million views, after San Marino finished their Euro 2024 qualifying group having lost every game.
Fittingly, the mysterious anonymous figure behind the account was inspired to create it because he couldn’t find anywhere else to post updates about the riches of San Marino in English.
“I am interested in football micro-states, but San Marino always had and still has a special place in my heart,” he says. Sky Sports. “When San Marino scores I usually get about 5,000 extra followers.
“It doesn’t get a lot of recognition from within the country. But that’s fine, the players have to focus on making the nation proud. X is not really a thing in Italy and San Marino, so I think they barely realize that I love them.” are online.”
As tweets of keyboard-smashing glee usually accompanied those consolation goals, or, if they were very lucky, random goalless draws, nobody at home or abroad was prepared for any real success.
In four games between September and November, San Marino picked up their first ever win, added a second on their debut away win and enjoyed their finest hour in November in Liechtenstein, coming from behind to win 3-1 and send the biggest shock you can fit in a country slightly bigger than Middlesbrough.
“It’s a nice feeling after all those years of defeats,” says the steadfast Vitaioli Sky Sportsstill emotional after almost a month. “We were received as heroes in San Marino. It was incredible.”
At 17, he became San Marino’s youngest ever player in 2007 and is now the team’s elder statesman, at 35 after 103 games, 97 defeats, five draws and, after five minutes at the end of that Lichtenstein game, one win, almost. an entire career is in the making.
“It’s such a big thing for us that we probably haven’t understood what actually happened,” he adds. “It pays off for all the sacrifices we have made over the years.
“We knew we were playing well, but going up to the next league was still a dream. But sometimes dreams come true, especially if you never give up.”
All the manifestations that took place in San Marino could not independently realize the country’s dream. Two hundred and fifty miles from the Pope’s home, divine intervention felt more realistically supported.Or, as it turned out, UEFA.
The governing body’s brain child, the League of Nations, has leveled the playing field for smaller countries, and not before long.
In two qualifiers before the inaugural competition in 2018, the Samaritans had conceded 90 goals in 20 games and scored three times, recording a solitary draw against Estonia.
But that new platform alone cannot explain their rise. Liechtenstein and Gibraltar were also included in San Marino’s Nations League group four years ago, and they finished bottom with two draws and two defeats, conceding just three times and not scoring a single goal themselves.
Their moment in the sun has its roots in a decade of UEFA-funded infrastructure investment, including a generational redevelopment of the national stadium and a new San Marino academy center for under-19s. Seven of San Marino’s most recent squads have graduated.
“UEFA’s support has been crucial,” San Marino FC president Marco Turan said after the Nations League victory. “It changed our way of thinking and our vision of football.
“UEFA guided us in every step of our organizational and technical development, enabling us to raise the level of football not only economically, but also structurally and technically.”
One thing UEFA could not ensure was the right manager to take advantage of the brightest crop of young players the country has ever produced.
Fabrizio Costantini has done a great job since being promoted from the U21s in 2022, lowering the average age of the squad and briefly leveling with Denmark last October before Yussuf Poulsen’s winner prevented all upsets and a once-broken cap lock.
His successor, Roberto Chevoli, has reached new heights by naming Europe’s youngest midfield international in 2024.
The rewards were short-lived as 24-year-old Nicolas Nanni has been the standout star of this Nations League campaign, scoring a last-minute penalty to equalize in their penultimate game in Gibraltar before scoring to complete the turnaround in Vaduz last month.
“All credit goes to the manager’s approach,” Vitaioli adds. “He was a real breath of fresh air and brought new motivation to the team.”
This is likely to be as good as it gets for the Samaritans, with Albania, Finland and possibly Slovakia all sides that have qualified in recent tournaments awaiting them in League C for the 2026/27 Nations League season.
Then there is still as slim a chance as the country itself of a place at the 2026 World Cup.
The four Nations League group winners who finish in the top two of their World Cup qualifying groups will advance to a play-off next November for one of the four finals places.
There’s a realistic chance San Marino could be among them, although winning two more games to get to the US, Canada and Mexico seems like a pipe dream, but then, that’s how they got here in the first place.
