by “I remember it clearly. What made it very special was that we didn’t expect it to happen. But there was no big celebration – the simple fact that we had to walk off the pitch after 90 minutes as winners, for the first time, that was the biggest celebration we could have had,” says Simone Bacchiocchi . “We didn’t need to have a party. That was more than a football team, not just a group of football players. It was a group of friends, a group of people who had made sacrifices, had struggled, and had fought together to achieve a goal. And that was one great game to play. To have one good result.”
Bacchiocchi was 27 when San Marino beat Liechtenstein 1-0 in April 2004, his nation’s first win in a full international match. A month shy of twenty years later, the Sammarinese are still waiting for their second victory. Since the final whistle blew in Serravalle that night San Marino have played 137 games and only had six minutes to go, against Malta in August 2012.
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But the dark days could soon be over. On Wednesday and Sunday they play friendlies at home against St Kitts and Nevis, who could be ranked 147th by Fifa (St Marin are 210th and 210th last) but have lost seven of their nine games game, latest 5-0 i. Guadeloupe last November. Meanwhile San Marino enter the games on a scoring run in each of their past three games, an unprecedented feat, losing the games by the narrow margins of 2-1, 3-1 and 2-1.
“I have no idea what will happen if we win,” says Lorenzo Capicchioni, a 22-year-old midfielder. “It was an unimaginable thing, something that cannot be achieved, but this time we can definitely do it. Normally we try to keep the score at 0-0 as long as possible but this will be completely different, as we have to be on the front foot, to try to score. But we showed what we are capable of against Denmark at home [last October]: we lost 2-1 and we had 20 minutes to play and we were pushing at the end to draw the game.”
Capicchioni made his international debut in 2022, when San Marino played a pair of friendlies against Caribbean opposition in Saint Lucia, drawing one and losing the other. But those games were played away from home, and with a weakened team. “I don’t know Saint Kitts very well, but the coach showed us a few videos and I assume their level will be about the same as Saint Lucia,” he says. “We were missing a lot of members of our starting XI for those games and this time we will be at full strength, so I think if we play our best we can do it. I don’t want to jinx us, but we can do it.”
Despite their promising goal scoring, San Marino have just changed their coach, Roberto Cevoli replacing Fabrizio Costantini. “I have one big regret,” Costantini said as he left last December. “My father has not been able to come to the stadium in recent years and I want to dedicate the upcoming victory to him.” Since the team last played Aldo Simoncini, the senior goalkeeper at 37, and his 28-year-old understudy Elia Benedettini have announced their international retirement, saying that he was thinking about the transfer for some time despite his age: “The atmosphere we used to have in the team always stopped me from doing it – I would not have walked out on the second family.”
Capicchioni insists that the atmosphere in the squad is triumphant. “It’s still the same people, I don’t think much has changed,” he says. “We’re still a good group. Coming from a small country, we know each other well. When it’s time to play for the national team, we know we have to give something extra to help each other. So it’s not a simple friendship – you could say we see each other more as brothers, so we go that extra mile for each other on the pitch. It is a different spirit. We know that we are usually weaker than our opponents, so we have to do.
With San Marino’s population estimated by the United Nations at 32,960 – roughly two thousand that of the UK – the team’s chances of victory against most opponents will always be slim, and after 206 games their all-time record win stands one, nine of a draw. and 196 wins. But despite those bad results and those conceded goals, it was never difficult to represent San Marino. It is clear that it allows those selected to play in front of thousands and against superstars: Capicchioni treasures a photo with Christian Eriksen; Bacchiocchi has memories of marking Zlatan Ibrahimović, Robert Lewandowski and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, and playing at Wembley three times.
“Every game was such a source of pride,” says Bacchiocchi. “We’re a tiny nation, so obviously we don’t have great players and those who play have to make sacrifices, so when you play you put your heart into it, you play with the most passion. We were players, we were workers, we were just normal people. A kid who works all day and then goes to the stadium to play against professionals, against people who play football for a living, that’s something special.
“For that game in 2004 to still be the last win, the only win, that’s not good, but it’s also a pleasure to be involved in setting an example, and to show that it is possible to win. In the last few years so much work has been done, so many things have been improved. Now it’s time to give that effort a win.”
