Vatican City national football team
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Head coach |  Gianfranco Guadagnoli(as of 2002) |
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| Home stadium | Stadio Pio XII | ||
| FIFA code | VAT | ||
| Elo ranking | 223 | ||
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| First international | |||
 Vatican City 0-0 Monaco  Rome, Italy; 23 November 2002 |
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| Biggest win | |||
| Vatican City 3-0 NIR Rome, Italy; 18 June 2007 |
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The Vatican City national football team is the football team that plays for the Vatican City. They are one of only eight fully-recognised sovereign states whose national team is not a FIFA member. The others are Monaco, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Micronesia, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and Palau.
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[edit] Overview
The Vatican City have played only one full international game, against Monaco in 2002, and a friendly game against a team from San Marino (not the full national team), both ending in 0-0 draws.[1][2]
In 2006, the Vatican City played SV Vollmond, a team from Switzerland, on a small field just outside of the Vatican; Vatican City prevailed 5-1.[3]
The Vatican City squad consists of the Swiss Guards (voluntary military force drawn from male Swiss citizens), members of the Papal council, and museum guards (Italian citizens). Since only members of the Swiss Guard can get the citizenship of the Vatican and they cannot be amassed in large numbers for a long time, the national team can play only a few rare international matches, often drawing a fair amount of interested press.
[edit] Catholicus Cup
In 2007, the Catholicus Cup was played; this was intended as a "supercup" for representative teams following the Clericus Cup. The four teams included the Vatican national team, a team representing Italian priests and Italy (Nazionale Italiana Religiosi), and two religious colleges. The final was contested between the Vatican and the NIR, and saw the Vatican run out 3-0 winners.
[edit] Selected internationals
| 23-11-2002 | Vatican City |
Monaco |
0 - 0 | |
| 18-06-2007 | Vatican City |
Nazionale Italiana Religiosi |
3 - 0 |
[edit] Vatican in Serie A
On 18 December 2006, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, stated 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 Juventus, Roma, Internazionale and Sampdoria." [4]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Vatican". World Football Elo Ratings. http://www.eloratings.net/Vatican.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
- ^ David Willey (2006-12-19). "Vatican plays down soccer 'joke'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_6195000/6195077.stm. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
- ^ Paul Saffer (2006-12-29). "Pray as you play". UEFA. http://www.uefa.com/magazine/news/kind=1024/newsid=492560.html. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
- ^ News.com
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