Vatican City national football team

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This article is about the men's team. For the women's team, see Vatican City women's national football team.

Vatican City
Shirt badge/Association crest
AssociationAssociazione Sportiva Dilettantistica "Sport in Vaticano"
Head coachGianfranco Guadagnoli
Most capsAntonino Gart
Pablo Enrique Amaro
Marcello Rosati (5)
Top scorerAlessandro Quarto
Antonino Gart
Marco Pouti
Nicolò Busincu (1)
Home stadiumCampo Pio XI
FIFA codeVAT
First colours
Second colours
Third colours
First international
Unofficial
  Vatican City 0–0 Austrian journalists Austria
(1985)
Official
  Vatican City 0–0 San Marino Amateurs 
(Rome, Italy; 22 November 1994)
Biggest win
Unofficial
  Vatican City 9–1 Station Carabinieri of Rome Italy
(Rome, Italy, 3 February 2011)
Official
  Vatican City 4–3 China U23 
(Rome, Italy; 25 October 2008)
Biggest defeat
Unofficial
Germany Borussia Mönchengladbach 21–4 Vatican City  
(Mönchengladbach, Germany; 13 August 2016)
Official
 Palestine 9–1 Vatican City  
(al-Khader, Palestine; 12 June 2011)

The Vatican City national football team (Italian: Selezione di calcio della Città del Vaticano) is the football team that represents Vatican City under the control of the Vatican Amateur Sports Association, headquartered in the Vatican's Cortile di San Damaso.[2] The Vatican City football association was founded in 1972. Its current president is Domenico Ruggerio.[3][4] Gianfranco Guadagnoli, an Italian, is the current head coach.[3] The team has been managed by Giovanni Trapattoni in the past.[5] His first match as manager was played on 23 October 2010 when Vatican City faced a team composed of Italian financial police.[6] The team played its first match in 1985, a 3–0 victory against a representative of Austrian journalists.[7] In 2018, the Vatican also created a women's representative team.[8]

Overview

Albert II, Prince of Monaco greeting team in June 2013
A carousel in the Cortile del Belvedere in 1565, 44 years after the first football match was held in the Vatican
Jersey worn by Vatican City in April 2017 during its friendly match with Monaco

In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II established a Vatican sports department with the aim of "reinvigorating the tradition (of sport) within the Christian community".[9] In 2006, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone suggested that the Vatican could field a team of men from Catholic seminaries. About the prospect, the cardinal stated, "If we just take the Brazilian students from our Pontifical universities we could have a magnificent squad." The cardinal also noted that in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, there were 42 players in the final round who attended Salesian training centres worldwide.[10] For example, Marcelino, Spanish hero of the 1964 European Nations' Cup was a former seminarian. It was Bertone's proposal that the Vatican's players, even if accepted by UEFA, would be drawn from the population within the Catholic Church worldwide, not just citizens of Vatican City. He was unclear at the time whether the Vatican would grant these players Vatican citizenship to make this possible.[11]

With the smallest population of any nation, approximately 900, it is difficult to form a squad. The Vatican City squad consists entirely of employees of the Vatican: police officers, postal workers, government officials and members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, the Vatican's de facto army, charged with protecting the pope. Since most Vatican citizens are members of the Swiss Guard, they cannot be amassed in large numbers for a long time. Therefore, the national team has played only a few rare international matches, often drawing a fair amount of interested press.[3] When Vatican City played its first match in 2002, only one player, Marcello Rosati, had a Vatican passport. In 2010, Vatican City was invited to participate in the Viva World Cup by the N.F.-Board and were expected to participate[12] but were unable to do so because they could not assemble a 15-man roster.[13] In total, Vatican City have played only four full international matches against other nations, one draw and three defeats to Monaco in 2002, 2011, 2013, and 2014 respectively.

In addition to its full international matches, the team has played a friendly match, its first, against the San Marino reserve team in 1994.[14] The final score of that match is believed to be a 0–0 draw but Steve Menary's book 'Outcasts: The Lands that FIFA Forgot' states that Vatican insiders told him that the match ended 1–1.[15] In 2010, the Vatican organized a team to play a friendly game against Palestine. However, the team was made up of Catholic priests and was not considered the Vatican City national team.[16] In 2006, the Vatican City played SV Vollmond, a team from Switzerland, at Stadio Petriana with Vatican City prevailing 5–1.[10][17] The team has also competed against a representative team from the Diocese of Limburg.[18] In September 2016 the team participated in a triangular tournament at the Manlio Scopigno Stadium in Rieti to raise funds for earthquake victims. Former Italian international Simone Perrotta also participated in the tournament.[19]

In April 2019 it was announced that the team had signed its first-ever sponsor, Poderi di San Pietro, a family-owned winery in Milan. The agreement was reached after ensuring that the organization met the strict ethical criteria established by the team. Previously, the Association was approached by a sports betting organization offering a very large sponsorship but was rejected for not aligning with those ethical standards.[20]

The Vatican's stance on football

Vatican footballing history began on 7 January 1521 when the first match of Calcio Fiorentino was played in the Vatican in the Cortile del Belvedere, in the presence of Pope Leo X. The first Vatican league was created in 1973 and was first won by employees of L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Holy See.[21]

The Vatican has typically expressed strong support for football. Pope John Paul II was reportedly a goalkeeper in his youth in Poland, and an ardent supporter of Cracovia Kraków.[22] The former German pope Pope Benedict XVI is an ardent supporter of Bayern Munich since his youth growing up in Bavaria, Germany.[23] Benedict is quoted as saying, "The sport of football can be a vehicle of education for the values of honesty, solidarity and fraternity, especially for the younger generation."[22] In October 2007, the Pope was presented with a #16 shirt (in reference to the sixteenth use of his papal name) by Serie B side Ancona after Benedict supported their initiative to become a "beacon of morality" by adopting an "innovative, ethical model of practising football".[22]

In 2010, Benedict and the Vatican reaffirmed their belief that football should be a beacon of morality by lashing out at Serie A after matches for the upcoming season were scheduled at 12:30pm on Sundays to appease pay-per-view companies wishing to spread out Serie A matches over the weekend. The Vatican previously questioned the league's decision to play matches on Sundays at all, but "I consider this a truly harmful development," Monsignor Carlo Mazza told Tuttosport. "Putting people in front of the television screen at 12.30 CET, when they are having lunch with their families, to me seems like a 'pitch invasion' on life."[24] Additionally, on 18 December 2006, Tarcisio Bertone, Cardinal Secretary of State of the Holy See, stated, but only in jest, that he did not preclude the possibility that the Vatican, in the future, could put together a football team of great value, that could play on the same level as, Roma, Internazionale and Milan or Genoa.[25][26] The current Argentinian pope, Pope Francis is an ardent fan of his hometown club San Lorenzo,[27] and exhibited disappointment when Argentina lost the 2014 World Cup final against Germany.[28]

FIFA membership

The Vatican is one of only nine fully recognized sovereign states whose national team is not a FIFA member. The others are the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom (though the UK's four "home nations"—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—have individual FIFA teams each of which is also a member of the IFAB).[3]

In 2006, UEFA spokesperson William Gaillard told a media outlet that he saw no reason why the Vatican should not have a national team in international competitions. He said, "We already have states of 30,000 citizens like San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Andorra. If the Vatican wants to become a member of UEFA all it has to do is apply. If it meets the requirements, it will be accepted". At that time Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone insisted that the Vatican's football future lies only in amateur games and competitions.[29]

In May 2014, Domenico Ruggerio, president of the national football association, reinforced Bertone's words from eight years prior, stating that "I prefer to be amateur...To join FIFA, at that level, will be like a business" after stating "The important message of friendship and love is demonstrated by the sport — the real sport, not the business that is in football these days...It is not just important to win a match; it is how you carry yourself." Therefore, that, he added, meant that "the ethos of the Vatican’s soccer team was, at odds with FIFA membership."[3]

In an April 2019 interview Danilo Zennaro, football director of the Vatican, told the St. Galler Tagblatt that the association would also not seek membership in an alternate confederation like ConIFA because of "political reasons" such as the diplomatic strife that would ensue from being in the same organization as breakaway regions and disputed territories.[30]

Kit

In the past, the kit has been provided by Diadora. The shorts were all white while the top is solid yellow with a narrow blue and white line around the right upper quadrant of the body.[31] The team's kit was then provided by Sportika SA until July 2021. The kit had an image of Saint Peter's Basilica ghosted on the front.[32] In July 2021 the association introduced a new kit by Joma. For the first time, the kits became readily available to the public as they were sold in the gift shop of the Vatican Museums with the profits benefitting Pope Francis's works of charity.[33]

Matches

  Win   Draw   Loss

No. Date Venue Opponents Score Competition Vatican City scorers
1 1985 Austria Austrian journalists 3–0 Friendly Unknown
2 1985 United Nations Selection of UN officials 3–3 Friendly Unknown
3 22 November 1994 Campo Pio XI, Rome  San Marino Amateurs 0–0 Friendly
4 23 November 2002 Stadio Pio XII, Albano Laziale  Monaco 0–0 Friendly
5 3 February 2006 Campo Pio XI, Rome Switzerland SV Vollmond 5–1 Friendly Unknown
6 18 June 2007 Italy Nazionale Italiana Religiosi 3–0 Friendly Unknown
7 25 October 2008 Campo Pio XI, Rome  China U23 4–3 Friendly Unknown
8 23 October 2010 Italy Guardia di Finanza 0–1 Friendly
9 3 February 2011 Rome Italy Station Carabinieri of Rome 9–1 Friendly Unknown
10 7 May 2011 Stadio Pio XII, Albano Laziale  Monaco 1–2 Friendly Quarto
11 12 June 2011 Al-Khader Stadium, al-Khader  Palestine 1–9 Friendly Unknown
12 22 June 2013 Stade Municipal Cap-d'Ail, Cap-d'Ail  Monaco 0–2 Friendly
13 10 May 2014 Campo Pio XI, Rome  Monaco 0–2 Friendly
14 10 August 2014 Mönchengladbach Germany Borussia Mönchengladbach 1–8 Friendly Unknown
15 14 May 2015 Italy Nazionale Sindaci Italiana 5–3 Friendly Unknown
16 17 June 2015 Campo Pio XI, Rome Saxony-Anhalt Lutherstadt Wittenberg 1–0 Friendly Unknown
17 20 June 2015 Campo Pio XI, Rome Liechtenstein FC Azzurri Schaan 2–2 Friendly Unknown
18 12 May 2016 Campo Pio XI, Rome Italy Associazione Italiana Arbitri Seregno 1–1 Friendly Unknown
19 13 August 2016 Mönchengladbach Germany Borussia Mönchengladbach 4–21 Friendly Unknown
20 7 November 2016 Stadio Pietro Fortunati, Pavia Italy Fondazione Ospedale San Matteo 1–2 Friendly Unknown
21 29 April 2017 Campo Pio XI, Rome  Monaco 0–0 Friendly
22 17 June 2017 Arthur-Lambert-Stadion, Wittenberg Saxony-Anhalt Lutherstadt Wittenberg 0–2 Friendly
23 16 June 2018 Sportanlage Rheinwiese, Schaan Liechtenstein FC Azzurri Schaan 1–8 Friendly Pouti
24 23 March 2019 Campo Pio XI, Rome  Raetia 2–2 Friendly Unknown
25 30 March 2019 Italy Atlético Pop United 2–2 Friendly Unknown
26 10 June 2019 Germany WEINELF 1–1 Friendly Unknown
27 15 June 2021 Centro Sportivo Ciriaci, Rome Vatican City Rappresentativa OPBG 2–3 Friendly Unknown
28 21 November 2021 Formello Sports Centre, Rome Italy World Roma Federation 7–7 Friendly Unknown

Final results

Up to matches played on 21 November 2021.

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD WPCT
  Vatican City 28 7 10 11 59 86 −27 25.00
Total 28 7 10 11 59 86 −27 25.00
Source: Results

Coaches

Giovanni Trapattoni coached the team in 2010.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Elo rankings change compared to one year ago. "World Football Elo Ratings". eloratings.net. 26 October 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
  2. ^ Nuti, Nicola. "Vaticano: 7 squadre per il campionato di calcio" (in Italian). News Cattoliche. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d e Montague, James. "A Friendly Game for a Beatific State". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  4. ^ "Vaticano". fedefutbol.net. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  5. ^ "The things they say: Giovanni Trapattoni". FIFA. Archived from the original on 31 May 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  6. ^ "Trapattoni betreut Vatikan-Auswahl" (in German). fussball24.de. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  7. ^ Ferrera, Elena. "VATICANO NEL PALLONE CON SQUADRE PAPALI" (in Italian). altrenotizie.org. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  8. ^ Wimmer, Anian Christoph. "Abortion, LGBT activists disrupt Vatican women footballers' debut". catholicherald.co.uk. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  9. ^ "Vatican Cup lifts spirits in Rome". FIFA. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  10. ^ a b Saffer, Paul. "Pray as you play". Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  11. ^ Relano, Alfredo. "Lo que el Vaticano quiere es Selección" (in Spanish). opinion.as.com. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  12. ^ Colchester, Max. "The World Cup For Everyone Else". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  13. ^ Parada, Gonzalo. "La Selección de fútbol del Vaticano vuelve al verde césped" (in Spanish). gamacero.blogspot.com. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  14. ^ "Vatican Football". The Path Less Traveled. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  15. ^ "Praying for a win – the Vatican City at World Cup 2014?". Six Balls Between Us. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  16. ^ Willey, David (19 December 2006). "Vatican plays down soccer 'joke'". BBC News.
  17. ^ "Fussball im Vatikan" (in German). 1. FC Ratzinger. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  18. ^ Pradelli, Christian. "Trap ct della nazionale vaticana Sfiderà la Guardia di Finanza il 23/10" (in Italian). Sport Media Set. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  19. ^ "Terremoto Centro Italia - Venerdì a Rieti la Nazionale italiana sindaci partecipa a triangolare di solidarietà" (in Italian). anci.it. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
  20. ^ Gerevini, Maria. "Per la "nazionale" del Papa ora c'è uno sponsor (di)vino" (in Italian). corriere.it. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  21. ^ Mattei, Giampaolo. "Lo scudetto vaticano? Ai Gendarmi E per gli Svizzeri". vatican.va. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  22. ^ a b c "Pope: Football a moral guide to life". CNN. 10 January 2008.
  23. ^ "Pope heading to World Youth Day aboard 'Shepherd One'". news.com.au. 9 July 2008.
  24. ^ "Vatican slams Serie A Sunday lunchtime kick-offs". ESPN. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  25. ^ "Vatican team will have the hand of God". Agence France-Presse. 18 December 2006. Archived from the original on 30 June 2007.
  26. ^ David Willey (19 December 2006). "Vatican plays down soccer 'joke'". BBC News. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  27. ^ "Pope Francis to celebrate birthday with visit from his favourite football team". Catholic Herald. 17 December 2013. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  28. ^ "Former Pope Benedict Please With Germany's World Cup Victory, Hopes Argentina 'Recovers Soon'". The Christian Post. 16 July 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  29. ^ "Vatican squashes soccer team idea". Italy Magazine. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  30. ^ Lemmenmeier, Adrian. "Abseits der Fifa: Der Fussball-Verband nicht anerkannter Staaten wächst – auch ein Team aus Graubünden ist dabei" (in German). St. Gallen Tagblatt. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  31. ^ "First half goals secure Monaco win against Vatican City". Non-FIFA Football. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  32. ^ "2017 Kit". Doing the 116. Archived from the original on 23 December 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
  33. ^ "THE OFFICIAL TEAM SHIRT IS FOR SALE AT THE VATICAN MUSEUMS". Sport in Vaticano. Retrieved 20 August 2021.

External links

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