Losing 2-1 to Denmark. Falling 2-1 to Finland. Drawing 1-1 with Latvia. For most soccer teams, this would be an indication of bad form, difficult moments that supporters try their best to forget and probably a sign that the team is looking for a new coach.
For San Marino, these are some of the greatest results in the nation’s history. That’s because San Marino loses – a lot. Since the country’s first ever match on March 28, 1986, of the 212 games the national team has played, it has lost all but 12 and only won two.
The highest position La Serenissima has ever had in the FIFA world rankings was world No. 118 in September 1993 and it has been a steady descent – with some precipitous falls – since then. The last time the team was not rock bottom of the rankings was more than three years ago when, for 35 days, the side was 209th instead of 210th. It is, statistically, the worst national soccer team in the world.
“You try to do your best wherever you can, but if the opposition are having a good day, then they can do what they want to you,” defender Dante Rossi told CNN Sport.
San Marino, a tiny microstate within Italy, is home to 33,600. Were it a city in the US, it would be around the 1,400th-largest in the country by population.
It is known for its beautiful views, traditional cakes, and for being the world’s oldest surviving republic. It is not, however, known for its soccer prowess.
Marcello Mularoni is one of San Marino’s most important players. He has made 45 appearances for his country, played in huge games against the likes of England and Italy, and captained the team in its most recent outing.
But most of the time, Mularoni is a business consultant.
The midfielder is semi-professional, like almost all of his national teammates. The San Marino squad is made up of office workers, personal trainers, students, a graphic designer, and one full-time professional – Nicola Nanni, who plays his club soccer for Torres in Serie C, the third tier in Italy.
“It’s strange. During the day you’re concentrating on your work, and then you have to switch to training,” Mularoni told CNN Sport. “If you are tired, you still have to train. We do it for our passion. But it’s also about the great opportunity that we have to face players like (Jude) Bellingham – our idols that we see on TV – like they are normal guys or friends.
“It’s funny, but we have to work. We play a lot of matches during the year, which means we are away from work, so you have to show respect to the owner of the business.”
According to Rossi, this double life is one of the reasons why San Marino has struggled over the years.
“We have a lot of people in the squad who work or study. That takes up a lot of time and definitely a lot of concentration,” he said.
“We are not professionals who can dedicate our time and have economic well-being for a lifetime and have our minds solely on football. We have a lot of problems, we have family, we have a lot of things to think of besides football. It gets really complicated because (other teams) are 100% dedicated to this.”
According to Rossi, it is not easy to lose so heavily, so often. Between 2006 and 2023, San Marino held the unwanted record of suffering the biggest defeat in European Championship qualifying history – a 13-0 drubbing by Germany.
September 7, 2006, remains a dark day for anyone who follows San Marino. Two months earlier, Germany had been beaten by Italy in the last minute of a World Cup semifinal in Dortmund.
Believing San Marino to be essentially Italian, Die Mannschaft took revenge. German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann even had to be talked out of taking a penalty by the Sammarinese players who, already 12-0 down, had faced enough humiliation.
Rossi did not play in that game, but he did feature on another infamous day in the nation’s soccer history, a 10-0 loss to England in November 2021.
“That game was the most difficult, on a personal level and as a group, that we have had to face,” remembered Rossi. “It was painful. We did suffer after that game, to tell you the truth. We suffered a lot. But hey, it happens. That’s football.
“We are San Marino, we always have to suffer!”
So frequent are the heavy defeats that Rossi has learned to take the positives wherever he can, including from another game against England that year.
“In 2021, we played at Wembley against England and lost 5-0,” he said. “5-0 is obviously a big scoreline, but for us at Wembley, it was almost good. Maybe not good, but definitely acceptable.”
The defender is philosophical about what it means to play for a team which only won one of its first 210 games, a 1-0 victory over Liechtenstein in an exhibition match in 2004.
“It’s very difficult to understand it because football is a sport where the most important thing – the only thing, sometimes – is to win and become champions,” he explained. “But I don’t think it’s one extreme or the other. Everyone has to look at their own reality and what they can do with it, even the small things.”
San Marino’s fans have also learned how to remain upbeat, even if they can afford to be slightly more self-deprecating. Fan account @SanMarino_FA has garnered 178k followers – more than five times as many people as the population of the country itself – on X, formerly known as Twitter, with a humorous account of what it is like to support the team.
“It’s a hell of a ride!” laughed its admin, who goes by the pseudonym Martino Bastianelli, in an interview with CNN Sport. “I always think, ‘Maybe today is the day.’ But then they start playing.”
Even more tongue-in-cheek is the national team’s main supporters’ group, the Brigata Mai 1 Gioia, or “Never One Joy Brigade.”
“We are sick because we support San Marino,” Christian Santini, a Brigata member since 2018, told CNN Sport. “We support a team that never wins.”
“I am not from San Marino,” he continued. “I live near the west coast of Italy. It takes me almost three hours to get to San Marino. We (the Brigata) have a Bavarian man who drives to San Marino from Munich. We have people from Austria, two Irish guys, a French guy.
“These are sick people. Simple.”