England Beat San Marino: As Tedious As it Was Inevitable

Tedious: That’s the only word to describe last week’s England v San Marino World Cup qualifier played behind closed doors at Wembley Stadium. Considering that I have watched very little football on TV in recent months, you may wonder why I bothered with this game. I’m actually wondering that myself.

I put it on because there was nothing else worth watching on live TV, and I wasn’t inspired enough to troll through the catch-up services for anything else. And there was a sort of morbid fascination in watching a mismatch between the team ranked fourth in FIFA’s men’s football rankings, and the team ranked bottom (210^th).

The game followed the usual pattern when England play one of Europe’s lesser lights at Wembley. These games normally comprise twenty minutes of missed England chances, two or three quick goals and a comfortable half-time lead. Rinse and repeat after the break. The second forty-five minutes of these games usually see the England boss introduce a few new faces (one match wonders and ‘pity’ caps along with a genuine prospect or two), breaking up any rhythm and flow that the team had.

England celebrates debut-making Ollie Watkins's first goal for his country.

As games go, this was as predictably one-sided as one would expect; England had 85% of the possession and 32 shots at goal compared with San Marino’s two, neither of which were on target. The fact that England only won 5-0 was thanks to a combination of poor finishing, good goalkeeping, San Marino’s objective of simply keeping the score respectable, and England seemingly just wanting to see how many passes they could string together.

As the match stats show, this was a procession, not a contest.

England’s record against San Marino is seven wins from seven fixtures with 42 goals scored and just one conceded. San Marino’s record in full international’s is Played 175, Won 1, Drawn 7, Lost 167, Goals Scored 24, Goals Against 735. Of Europe’s lowest-ranked sides (San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Andorra), only Luxembourg (shock winners over the Republic of Ireland on Saturday) has a record that can be described as better than abysmal, and between them, those four nations have lost 929 of the 1,154 internationals they have played.

Some people think that the lowest-ranked nations should play among themselves and qualify for the right to play in the qualification competition proper. Gary Lineker is one such, but his tweet prompted some somewhat self-righteous responses, with his suggestion called “condescending and sneering” in one reply.

A pre-qualifying tournament involving San Marino and Europe's other also-rans might at least give these teams the opportunity to record a few wins and score a few goals because unless I am mistaken, the objective in a football match is to score goals and none of these sides are doing that particularly well. Countries like San Marino (average, one goal every seven games) do not set out to score goals, but simply to concede as few as possible. If they and England were boxers the referee would stop the fight. Actually, they would never be allowed in the same ring in the first place.

You could argue that San Marino are as worthy of their place in the World Cup qualifiers as are the non-League sides that reach the First Round of the FA Cup, except a non-League team that reaches that stage earned that right; the First Round is appropriately called the First Round Proper, because it follows the Qualifying Rounds. FIFA pit countries like Andorra against Germany or Spain as apparent equals and the sole reason that they do so is financial, to create an ever-larger pool of games for which they can sell the television rights. If the broadcasters ever decided that televising these qualifying matches was no longer financially viable, San Marino and Luxembourg would find themselves consigned to a pre-qualifying competition.

Since Uefa created the Nations League, there is no room in the football calendar for a pre-qualifying tournament for lower-ranked sides, and there is no possibility of Uefa abandoning the Nations League. Nor will FIFA sanction a pre-qualifying tournament for the World Cup, or the European Championships, because the Nations League features both the top sides and the weaker nations and generates income from broadcasters. A tournament in which the side ranked highest in FIFA’s rankings might be Luxembourg (98^th) would not provoke a stampede of sponsors, broadcasters, or advertisers to FIFA, or Uefa’s door. If it isn’t generating income, neither FIFA nor Uefa seem interested.

You may – like critics of Gary Lineker’s suggestion – find the idea of a pre-qualifying tournament for football’s lesser lights patronising, or disrespectful. There is a point of view that the smaller nations should have the same opportunities to qualify as the stronger ones, except they never do qualify for the finals, and they never will.

The odds are stacked against San Marino et al even before they kick a ball, because with the draw being seeded, they will rarely be in a group that contains a team they can beat. Neither FIFA nor Uefa will ever do away with seedings – can you imagine the anguish if a group consisting of say, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and England was ever drawn out, thus guaranteeing that three or four of those countries would be absent at the tournament finals? There will never be a group consisting of more than one or two of Europe’s weaker nations, hence at the end of this qualifying tournament, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Andorra will, as usual, have racked up no more than the two wins they got between them at the 2018 qualification stage.

Another view is that they should have the chance to improve by playing the stronger nations, except getting soundly thrashed and not scoring any goals is not a route to self-improvement. The opportunity to play teams of a similar standard on a more regular basis, to score more goals and actually win some games, would be more encouraging to the Sammarinese than playing Germany and getting beaten 13-0 as they were in 2006. In all, the Sammarinese have played Germany four times; the aggregate score is 34-0; what, precisely does anyone learn from that; how do those scorelines improve Sammarinese football? 

Other sports, and even other football competitions, recognise the disparity between teams of differing strengths and don’t expect them to compete as equals (if they did, we might witness Manchester City entertaining Skelmersdale United in the Extra-Preliminary Round of the FA Cup on the first Saturday in August). But once we get to international football, it seems perfectly acceptable to tolerate such mismatches as the 2001 World Cup qualifier in which Australia beat American Samoa 31-0. Other than a novelty, that sort of game benefits no one.

Football authorities, especially in England, frequently make decisions or implement policies in the name of the integrity of the game, or of a competition; it doesn’t strike me that there’s much integrity in watching a country play 175 matches and lose 167 of them.

Everyone who has been ranting about Gary Lineker's comments, or takes issue with what I've written here can rest easy, however: Nothing will ever change, especially since San Marino et al are probably happy to have the chance to play the top nations regularly, even if they are trounced each time (and be better off financially by doing so), than they would be playing in a group where they could actually win a game or two.