Swimming with the Minnows

Football is the one true global game, so why do we seem insistent on excluding some countries?

It seems rather fitting that England were so inept in their qualifier this week against Montenegro, given that an issue that I was planning to sit down and think about was the role that the so called ‘minnow nations’ have to play in international football. It’s something that I’ve debated before but I was once again inspired after reading what I thought was an excellent article on the Guardian’s website from one of their correspondents with a good knowledge of the global game, Paul Doyle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/oct/11/euro-2012-minnow-nations-giantkilling

The article addresses the argument many have raised in recent times, namely what value is there from the likes of Spain, Germany and erm England from facing off against the likes of San Marino and Andorra. After all, these are always guaranteed, one sided, push over wins aren’t they? But then again I thought there were no easy games in international football...

For the most part this cliché can be true, in that, it is actually fairly difficult to just turn up and roll a team over. In modern international football, teams, even from those smaller (some would say microscopic) nations have improved immensely in terms of their organisation and fitness. Increasingly when teams aiming solely not to lose, or indeed apply damage limitation turn up and park the proverbial bus, then regardless of whether you are France or the Faroe Islands, you will struggle to break them down.

Yet, we also see many instances of teams being walloped, and very few of the so called minnows ever win competitive games, save for when they may come up against one another. What’s more when you see a team turning up who you know are never going to come forward and are only there to defend then it’s hard to see entertainment value easy to see why some see it as not being conducive to building the spirit of the game.

It’s these lines of thinking Doyle argues, that regularly lead to questions over why such mismatches are allowed to take place. As he says;

‘And while they [small nations] are being thrashed they will also have to endure folks berating them just for being there. How often have you heard people grumble that such countries are mere nuisances? That some of them exist solely to give UEFA more votes in FIFA elections and that matches against them serve no purpose? That they should be forced to play among themselves before one of them perhaps earns the right to compete against a proper team?’

I guess before Tuesday, not many in English football circles would’ve called Montenegro a ‘proper team’ but their they sit, unbeaten and top of their qualifying group after four rounds of fixtures. Montenegro is Europe’s newest country to take to the football field, and already you can see the progress in their game going forward by leaps and bounds. True, they are no San Marino, but they are a small nation that is unquestionably improving through matching up with the best.
Cyprus are another example of how football in a country can develop if given time and playing top level international football rather than cutting it off and constraining it to playing pre-qualifiers against micro-nations. As Doyle points out;

‘One former minnow nation that is now making serious waves is Cyprus...The 5-2 destruction of the Republic of Ireland in 2006 and last month's 4-4 draw in Portugal testify that they are now a force’

Quoting Leo Leonidou, the sports editor of Cyprus Mail, the article says that;

‘They [Cyprus] no longer expect to lose – and there is even a growing feeling that we will get out of our group for the first time."

Like all sports, there isn’t meant to be a minimum standard, or minimum perceived standard for people to be able to compete against one another. What’s more, if we started denying the underdog the chance to compete against the ‘big boys’ then you risk taking away one of the key elements of what makes sport and drama so compelling. Yes on paper team A should not be beating team B, but then sport doesn’t work like that.

Furthermore, it’s always frustrating when people seem to one to spoil one of the best things about football, the fact that it is the one, true global game. The whole world plays football and everyone deserves the chance to have a crack at qualifying for major tournaments, never mind how long the long shot might be. Teams like Slovenia, Slovakia and Northern Ireland have all qualified for World Cup’s in the past. True they are not Liechtenstein but they are hardly giants of the game either. For many nations out there, getting the opportunity, and often, if not winning bur running the giants of the game close is what spurs on football development and interest in that country and insures many more of those nationalities decide to take up the game.

We always moan about the Premier League becoming too stale and football at the top and in the Champions League becoming too much of a closed shop when only the same teams play each other over and over again and yet when we do get variety, we seem determined to exclude them at every turn and stop the development of the world game.

For the final point on this, Louis Micallef, the deputy general secretary of the Malta Football Association sums things up pretty nicely from where I sit;

"Maybe the big boys should simply play each other and we just sit down and watch?...And maybe only Premier League teams should be allowed into the FA Cup? And maybe the Premier League should consist of only four teams? Look, we know we [Malta] will probably always be wooden-spoonists but there must be giant killers — the prospect of springing a surprise is what motivates the players."