Football in San Marino

San Marino, along with Italy, enjoys football (soccer) as its most popular sport.

Domestic Football

The San Marino Championship, founded under the auspices of the FSGC (San Marino Football Federation), is the premier footballing competition in San Marino. The fifteen teams that take part in the competition are split into two groups of eight and seven teams. The top three from each section at the end of the regular season progress into a semi-knockout style Championship Playoff. Prior to 2007, the playoff champion earned a spot in the preliminary rounds of the UEFA Cup. In 2007, UEFA granted San Marino a spot in the 1st Qualifying Round of the Champions League. 2007 league champions S.S. Murata was the first team to represent San Marino in the Champions League when they participated in the 2007-08 competition, losing to Finland's Tampere team. San Marino also has a representative in the Italian system, with San Marino Calcio playing in the third tier of Italian football, Serie C2/B. San Marino play their home matches in the Sanmarinese at the Stadio Olimpico of Serravalle.

International Football

The San Marino national team played its first unofficial international match in 1986, in which it suffered a 0-1 defeat to the Canadian Olympic team. Its first competitive outing was on November 14, 1990, a 0-4 loss against Switzerland in the European Championship qualifier. These defeats set the tone for most of the following outings of the team, who are regarded as whipping boys in the qualifying sections of the European Championship and the World Cup.

They had a brief moment of glory when they faced England in a World Cup qualifier on November 17, 1993 and took the lead through Davide Gualtieri after just 8.3 seconds - still the fastest goal in World Cup competition [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3952361] . Despite this goal, only San Marino's third at international level, the microstate went on to lose 7-1.

Until recently, San Marino's international record was one of almost total failure, with famous draws against Turkey and Latvia being the only partial successes in an international career that contains over 70 defeats. However, on the 29 April 2004, San Marino recorded their first ever win, with a 1-0 victory over Liechtenstein in an international friendly. Andy Selva scored the only goal in a close game that finally gave this tiny republic a footballing victory.

On September 6, 2006, San Marino suffered their biggest ever defeat, losing 13-0 to world giants Germany in the Stadio Olimpico. It was also the largest goal margin defeat in European Championship Qualifying history.In the same competition on February 7th 2007, they came within 8 seconds of the best result in their history. They were level at 1-1 with the Republic of Ireland after 94 minutes when Stephen Ireland scored within 8 seconds of the final whistle. The goal scored by San Marino was their European Qualifying first goal since losing 4-1 to Austria in 1998.

As of May 2007, San Marino are 195th in the FIFA world rankings.