Ever since the Faroe Islands (population: three men and a puffin) beat Austria in their first-ever competitive international soccer match in September 1990 (I remember it like it was yesterday – they had to play in Sweden because there wasn't enough room in the Faroe Islands for a proper soccer field), I've had a strange fascination with small nations and their underdog national soccer teams.
When the USSR splintered into a million little pieces and Yugoslavia disintegrated into a million calls for peace, my soccer logs exploded into life. Suddenly you had unheard-of nations like Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Macedonia, Croatia, my beloved Slovenia, Turkmenistan (I'll write a post about that crazy country one day) and so on and so on. And – because I yam what I yam – I set out to learn every one of those countries' location on the official world map.
Ten years later, Soccernet ran a classic piece about a friendly international between Tibet and Greenland – two countries which, for various reasons, aren't independent on any official world map. I return to that story once every year or so, if only for the you-wouldn't-read-it-anywhere-else line: "Behind the goal, you could buy a hot dog or the Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology. Revised and Enlarged edition, naturally."
Greenland returned in 2006 for the absolutely mental FIFI Wild Cup: a rebel World Cup organised by German soccer punks FC St Pauli, featuring Greenland, Tibet, Gibraltar, Zanzibar and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – none of which are recognised by FIFA or any official world maps.
Now I read on the BBC that Easter Island just played their first game, against Colo Colo from Chile.
I'm loving it. And as long as FC Barcelona are the de facto Catalan national side, Athletic Bilbao are – even more so – the de facto Basque national side (there's a post in there too somewhere!), and SC Heerenveen are the de facto national side of my beloved Friesland (with the national flag – pompeblêden and all – as their shirt), I'll be a happy man.
