National Teams the World Forgot: Association Football’s International Curiosities

Article by Stephen Woodward. Edited by Danielle Coomer. Additional Research by Liz Goodwin.

With FIFA’s surprise, some might claim frankly ludicrous, announcement of the 2022 World Cup hosts forcing the spotlight onto international football minnows Qatar, I thought now might be an opportune time to explore some of football’s other national sides that few have ever heard of. Gibraltar, the Saarland and even the Commonwealth of Independent States (the successor to the USSR) have all fielded international teams, although like Qatar these small, often obscure nations have made little impact in world football and often manage to go lost in the mists of time.

The settlement of wars often creates new nations, and with the end of the Second World War the occupation of Germany saw a new nation take on the rest of Europe at football. The Saarland national football team enjoyed a six year existence participating without success in international competition. The side came about in 1950 as a result of French protestations to the inclusion of the Saarland in the Federal Republic of Germany and lasted until the region’s unification with West Germany in 1956. Sportsmen from the Saar had no wish to represent their occupiers France on the international stage, so independent sporting associations were founded, including an Olympic committee that sent athletes competing under the banner of Saarland to the 1952 Olympic Games. The Saarland at the time had a wealth of world-class footballers, with almost all playing for F.C Saarbrucken. A similar French gripe regarding occupation had prevented F.C Saarbrucken from participating in the German league (the Bundesliga), forcing the club to play as guests in the French second division for the 1948-49 season. After F.C Saarbrucken stormed to the Ligue 2 championship,    strangely enough the French clubs voted unanimously against the Saarlanders permanently joining the French Football Federation for the next season. The quality of footballers from this German backwater was therefore not to be underestimated. The Saarland’s only full international competition entered was the 1954 World Cup where they narrowly finished second in qualifying, having played Norway and West Germany. Having beaten Norway away from home the Saarland were denied an appearance at the finals in Switzerland after suffering a defeat in their last match to eventual undefeated champions West Germany.

If the creation of nations has created some of football’s lesser-known teams the break up of countries has played an equally important role in creating forgotten sides. The players of the Soviet Union had enjoyed modest success in international football, winning the European Championship in 1960 and collecting runner-up medals in 1964, 1970 and again in 1988, however a knockout in the first round of the 1990 World Cup was to be the Soviet Union’s last international competition. The fall of the Soviet Union witnessed the short-lived creation of a national team for the Commonwealth of Independent States. As the Soviet Union team had booked a place at the 1992 European Championship prior to its dissolution on January 1st 1992, a unified team was required to take their place, the team sent were the Commonwealth of Independent States. The team solely participated in that one tournament, from January to June of 1992, not managing to escape their group. Following the tournament the team was dissolved with the players henceforth representing the individual former soviet republics now nations from which they heralded, though FIFA acknowledges its official successor as the Russian national side. The swift demise of the CIS team meant that players such as former Chelsea goalkeeper Dmitry Kharin and CIS most capped player Sergei Aleinikov hold the somewhat anomalous record of having represented three different nations on the international stage.

These are of course official teams recognised by FIFA, however there is a plenitude of ‘would be’ national sides in existence today. In 2007 the Gibraltan football association made headlines when it made a bid for membership of the European football association UEFA. Out of 52 member associations only the English, Scottish and Welsh football associations voted in favour of Gibraltar’s membership, whilst Spain threatened to boycott and withdraw from any competition to which Gibraltar were admitted. In want of international football Gibraltar competes against other outcast teams and is a member of the Federation of International Football Independents FIFI, an alternative to FIFA. The first FIFI world cup was contested in 2006 in Hamburg in Germany, with five nations taking part; Gibraltar, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyrpus (the eventual winner), Zanzibar, Greenland and Tibet.

FIFA currently has 208 member associations, to put that into context that’s 16 more countries than are members of the United Nations. Qatar are currently ranked by FIFA as 105th in the world, sadly enough for any Welshmen out there that is eight places higher in the rankings than Wales. Having only been formed as national side in 1970 they have failed to qualify (besides the automatic bye they will receive for 2022) for the World Cup finals, but have turned out in seven Asian cup finals. The pinnacle of their success being reaching the quarter-finals of the Asian cup in 2000, and then again this year, of which they are also the hosts. The 2022 World Cup will undoubtedly be an interesting chapter in football history, not merely due to it being the first world cup played against average daily temperatures of +35*C, but also because the eyes of the world will be on its minnow of a host team, hoping to become the definitive heroes of the national team as it gets its first and likely only shot at winning the trophy.

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