“I remember it very clearly. What made it really special was that we didn’t expect it to happen. But there was no big celebration; the fact that we walked off the field with a win after 90 minutes was the biggest celebration we could have had for the first time,” says Simone Bacchiocchi. “We didn’t need to party. This was more than just a group of football players, it was more than a football team. It was a group of friends who sacrificed, struggled and fought together to achieve a goal. And that was great playing. To achieve a good result.”
Bacchiocchi was 27 when San Marino beat Liechtenstein 1-0 in April 2004; it was his country’s first victory in a full international competition. Twenty years and one month later, the Sammarinese are still waiting for their second win. San Marino have played 137 games since the final whistle blew that night in Serravalle and were ahead for just six minutes against Malta in August 2012.
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But the dark days may soon be over. On Wednesday and Sunday they play home friendlies against Saint Kitts & Nevis, who are 147th in the Fifa rankings (San Marino is 210th and last) but have lost seven of their last nine games. We were in Guadeloupe last November. Meanwhile, San Marino went into the fixture having scored goals in each of their last three matches; An unprecedented success, losing matches by narrow margins of 2-1, 3-1 and 2-1.
“I have no idea what will happen if we win,” says their 22-year-old midfielder Lorenzo Capicchioni. “It was almost unimaginable, unattainable, but this time we can definitely do it. Normally we try to keep the score at 0-0 for as long as possible but this will be completely different because we need to be ahead to score. But we showed what we can do against Denmark on our own field. [last October]: We lost 2-1 and with 20 minutes left we were level and at the end of the game we were pressing for a draw.”
Capicchioni made his international debut in 2022, when San Marino played a pair of friendly matches against Caribbean rivals in Saint Lucia, drawing one and losing the other. However, these matches were played away and with a weak team. “I don’t know Saint Kitts very well, but the coach showed us a few videos and I assume their level will be roughly the same as Saint Lucia,” he says. “We were missing many members of our starting 11 in these matches and we will be at full strength this time, so I think we can achieve that if we do our best. I don’t want to jinx us but we can do it.”
Despite the promising goal streak, San Marino changed their coach and Fabrizio Costantini was replaced by Roberto Cevoli. “I have great regrets,” Costantini said upon his departure last December. “My father has not been able to come to the stadium in recent years and I would like to dedicate the victory that I know will come to him.” The team announced that they will retire from the national team after last playing with their 37-year-old senior goalkeeper Aldo Simoncini and his 28-year-old substitute Elia Benedettini. Elia Benedettini said that despite his age, he had been thinking about this move for a while: “We always prevented me from doing this when the atmosphere was in the team; I would never leave a second family.
Capicchioni insists the atmosphere in the team remains lively. “It’s still the same guys, I don’t think much has changed,” he says. “We’re still a good group. Coming from a small country, we know each other really well. When it comes time to play for the national team, we know we have to give something extra to help each other. So it’s not just a friendship; we can say we see each other more as brothers, so “We make extra efforts for each other on the field. It’s a different spirit. We know we are normally weaker than our opponents, so that’s what we have to do.”
As San Marino’s United Nations-estimated population is 32,960 (about one two-thousandth that of the United Kingdom), the team’s chances of winning against most opponents were always going to be slim, and after 206 matches the all-time record stands at one win, nine draws. and 196 defeats. But despite all these poor results and goals conceded, representing San Marino has never been a chore. Most obviously, it allows those selected to play in front of thousands of people and against superstars: Capicchioni cherishes a photo of himself with Christian Eriksen; Bacchiocchi has memories of recruiting Zlatan Ibrahimović, Robert Lewandowski and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and making three appearances at Wembley.
“Every match was a source of great pride,” says Bacchiocchi. “We are a small nation, so of course 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 greatest passion. We were actors, workers, just normal people. A kid who trains all day and then goes to the stadium to play against professionals, against people who make a living from football, that’s something special.
“It’s not good that that game in 2004 is still the last win, the only win, but at the same time there’s a pleasure in setting an example and showing that victory is possible. So much work has been done in the last few years, so many things have improved. Now we can make this effort It is time to turn it into victory.”