The rising popularity of the San Marino national football team has become a subject of interest for numerous media outlets recently, as the officially worst team in the world has amassed hundreds of thousands of fans on social media.
San Marino is officially the worst national team in the world. In the past 20 years, they haven’t won a single game, managing only a few draws and countless defeats. However, in San Marino, football is played out of pure passion that knows no bounds.
The fact that San Marino hasn’t won a game in 20 years has created a fan phenomenon, with the team having around 300,000 followers. This is nine times more than the population of this small country.
“One win, a few draws, endless defeats. Yet, passion without limits,” reads the description of the “San Marino Futbol” Twitter profile, the page of the local national team that has become a real hit in recent months.
This Twitter account is managed by Argentine journalist Ezequiel, who demonstrates that the passion for San Marino has transcended borders. Most of the team’s fans are from outside the country.
The page went viral because it follows and celebrates even every corner kick that San Marino takes, and it’s also celebrated when the team manages to go half an hour without conceding a goal. “Everything started in September 2021. I had been following small teams like San Marino and Gibraltar for a long time and thought it was a good idea to start a page about what no one talks about,” Ezequiel revealed to Spanish AS.
Three years later, his followers have multiplied, and he disclosed how thousands of them have been “infected” with love for San Marino, so now they all watch the matches of this weak team.
“They tell me ‘you are to blame for watching San Marino matches’ because sometimes, next to an important match like Argentina vs. Spain, people watch San Marino against Malta. That’s the great success of my profile,” the author of this internet hit added. San Marino has a total of 198 defeats and 10 draws. They haven’t won since 2004, and the situation is so chaotic that in 2022, the European team embarked on a kind of tour to different countries, hoping for some chance of victory.
During those months, San Marino faced Seychelles and Saint Lucia but failed to secure a win. The first match ended in a goalless draw, while the second ended with a 1-0 victory for Saint Lucia (183,000 inhabitants), despite the Caribbean team having a player sent off and finishing the match with only 10 players on the field. Even against 10 players, San Marino could not win.
Interestingly, San Marino has lost by six or more goals 49 times in its history.
