How San Marino made history

Dream a dream. A footballing dream. Dream the peak of footballing dreams. The impossible made possible. The impossible, not even possible, but suddenly happening. Actually happening. How might it feel? Unreal, that’s how it feels. The impossible made possible in front of your eyes does not feel real because the hitherto impossibility of it means you simply cannot process it as you should. You are speechless, you are mindless, you are experiencing a dream come true. A football dream come true. The peak of football dreams come true. Came true.

This is what happened in San Marino, halfway up a mountain, just a few weeks ago.

Daniele has just finished work for the morning. Now he’s carrying a small drum, a megaphone, a scarf, two flags and two shirts to his car, getting battered by wind and rain as he does so.

He’s about to drive two hours through the eye of a storm from his home in Modena, down the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, back out across the Adriatic coast, and finally up a mountain. Why? To watch the worst national football team in the world play against the 12^th worst national football team in the world. It’s San Marino v Liechtenstein: the clash of Europe’s least successful outfits, and Daniele is the organiser of the former’s superfans.

The 41-year-old picked up fellow Italian and San Marino fan Marco, and en route they’re sending a bunch of YouTube videos to the group chat. These will be the songs the 30-odd of us making up the ​“Brigata” – or Brigade, San Marino’s fiercely devoted set of ultra-fans – are expected to sing this Thursday evening. People are responding in Italian and English, pounding Google Translate with friendly enthusiasm. They’re discussing the storm, the huge flashes of lightning that just struck to the west of San Marino.

You see, the first (albeit figurative) lightning bolt struck some 20 years ago, under the floodlights in late April 2004, when San Marino won their first and only game. It was a friendly against (guess who?) Liechtenstein – a nicely drilled free-kick from Andy Selva early in the match gave them the only goal, and they held onto it like a newborn baby. 1 – 0. Game over. History made.

Twenty years on, under the same floodlights in September, San Marino are set to face Liechtenstein again, this time in a competitive fixture for the UEFA Nations League.

Lightning couldn’t strike twice. Could it?

The Republic of San Marino is the world’s fifth smallest country, oldest sovereign state, and oldest republic founded in AD301. It has a population of 33,660, which makes it smaller than the likes of Bicester, Haywards Heath, and Melton Mowbray. To put it another way, the republic of San Marino has a population half the size of Bury St Edmunds.

Houses, petrol stations, beauticians and car dealerships spiral up Monte Titano, where the capital’s old town – centro storico di San Marino – sprawls at the peak. Mopeds and the occasional Lycra-clad cyclist go up, while every 30 minutes a white and blue shuttle bus (shaped like a steam train) comes down tooting its horn. It’s a gimmick but a charmingly practical one – the mountain is a steep walk and its peak some 739m above sea level.

The country, and its old town, is friendly and peaceful. But it’s also a tax haven with some of the most relaxed gun laws in western Europe. Walking around the tourist areas, all within the old fortress walls, you’ll see many shops selling Glock 17s, crossbows, and swords. That said, the people here are low-key and unassuming. They won’t shout at you for ordering tiramisu for breakfast, but they will ask if you are sure you know what you’re asking for.

However, something loud and booming is growing in San Marino, too.

The Brigata, full name Brigata Mai 1 Gioia, or the ​“Never Any Joy Brigade” are some of the purest football fans you’ll ever meet. Hardly any of them are actually from San Marino. In fact, just three Sammarinese are here for the game. Instead, the Brigata is composed of football fans from all over the world. There are people like Alan, a teacher who has flown here from Taunton for tonight’s game. Or Josef, from Germany, who is retired and has been coming to almost every home match for more than a decade. ​“It’s just what I do,” he says matter-of-factly, from beneath a grey walrus moustache.

Of the 30-odd Brigata in the group chat for this game, there are people from England, France, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. Invariably, they have the same story: they love football and scrolled through the rankings to find a team in Europe at the very bottom. Or they live in Emilia-Romagna or Tuscany and caught wind of some plucky team in the mountains who had never won a game.

There’s a growing online following, too. On X, @SanMarino_FA, which is run by an anonymous fan who has never been to a San Marino game, has amassed over 175,000 followers. A digital Brigata, if you will. The official account, meanwhile, is run by Daniele and Tristan, a 17-year-old from Austria who, like the others, took a liking to the little team that never won. Online is where I first noticed them, too, when a goal against Denmark last October sent a flurry of retweets in my direction. @SanMarino_FA’s endearing bio? ​“Currently #210 on the #FIFA Ranking.”

Daniele and Marco make their way up the mountain in the afternoon. It’s a few hours before kick off, wipers are battling the wind and rain, heavy and squeaking against the glass. Tall grass sways like a Mexican Wave. Raindrops hit the ground like great footballs of wet. Lighting tackles the rocks and vanishes, and thunder reverberates like a cry of outrage, the world’s stadium on its feet, and in raptures.

The Brigatisti are updating each other on their delayed arrival times. Some are already in the old town, grabbing a beer, admiring the way the mountain is so tall and yet so near the sea, that you have views that stretch for miles and miles. You can even see where the storm begins and ends.

Kick off is a few hours away and, as the storm finally clears, it gives way to sunshine and rainbows; a warm, calm, windless night. The Brigata plans to assemble down by the stadium two hours before kick off – to prepare, to make friends, to catch up. Some are running late from work, winding down the windows and asking security if they can have access to drive through as close to the grounds as possible.

Arriving, Daniele steps out of his car in a Liechtenstein shirt. ​“I collect shirts, that’s another hobby of mine, along with being a superfan of San Marino,” he says. Over the last few weeks he’s been in touch with people from Liechtenstein’s own fan club, half a dozen of whom have flown out for the game. The flags are for them all to pose with. Opposing fans united by the same extraordinary commitment to their respective minnows.

“Today it is David against David,” says Walter, a tanned man in his sixties, who acts as leader of the Liechtenstein die-hards. He’s retired and doesn’t miss a game, home or away, unless ​“it’s very serious, or very impractical to go.” Daniele laughs and nods in agreement. Football as lingua franca. Two men, with two mother tongues, who understand each other completely.

The fans shake hands and talk. Some go off to the Rose ​‘n Bowl, a bowling alley and pub, for a beer. Others stay in their cars to eat piadina, the national dish; serviettes wrapped around cheese bleeding bread, legs sticking out of car doors. Daniele picked up the goods from Restaurant Il Matterello on the way. A ritual for those in the know – or those quick enough to respond to the group chat.

From there, we walk the gravel pavement to the stadium. ​“Forza Titani,” one of the Brigata shouts, a reference to the name of the mountain the country is built on. ​“Let’s make history,” another replies, trusting a plastic cup of beer towards the small, multi-purpose stadium (capacity a rather ambitious 6,664 people). He takes a swig, wipes his face, and joins the throng of people queuing to buy the new home shirt.

The Brigata occupy Block D2 of the stadium; the furthest block from the entrance, but the closest to the changing rooms, allowing them to shout encouraging tactical suggestions at half time.

Daniele and Lestat, another Brigatisti from Italy, are sticking the San Marino flag up next to their own custom Brigata Mai 1 Gioia flag at the back of the stand with duct tape. Job done, Daniele climbs back down a few rows and pulls the strap of his marching snare drum over his head.

Rummaging through his carrier bag, he pulls out a small white and green megaphone, switches it on and introduces himself and the Brigata in Italian, addressing the hundred or so San Marino fans to his left.

“Forza Titani!” he shouts. Then he beats the drum and starts singing song one in the songbook: ​“Quando entreremo al San Marino Stadium”.

From there, kick off, the Brigata’s songs don’t stop. Our ranks are swollen by 15 Finnish teenagers who’d been on a day trip from Italy, heard some English guy, Tom, one of the Brigata, talking about the match in a bar and decided to get involved.

The atmosphere is kept almost completely by the Brigata. Locals watch the game meditatively, letting things unfold with relative quiet. Then, in the 53^rd minute, the unthinkable happens: San Marino scores. Nicko Sensoli. A real forward’s goal. Poaching the ball from between the keeper and defender, bending his foot into it and sticking it into the net.

Limbs are everywhere – coaches and substitutes pile on him by the corner flag, in front of the Brigata. Those who aren’t bear hugging and lifting each other off the ground are climbing, flailing and falling over rows of chairs to bang on the glass screen between them and the players.

With a little over half an hour to go, the crowd starts to believe. Daniele’s drum is somehow louder now. A handful of locals, previously muted, move closer to the Brigata, picking up the chants while Daniele thrusts his phone speaker into the air to provide the backing.

You can feel every tackle in your gut. Every shout in your throat. The air is hung with sweat, every San Marino tackle met with a cheer until, until, until… a whistle.

Reader, they won.

There’s a pause before everything in the stadium turns white, as hundreds of people try to comprehend what they’ve just witnessed. The impossible made possible. The impossible, not even possible, but suddenly happening. Actually happening right here, right now.

Then, a roar of celebrations. Supporters stayed at the stadium for about an hour, celebrating, cheering at the players who ran around the pitch. Bars closed late and opened early the next day. Not that most of the Brigata were there for it. They had to drive home, back to Italy, to Germany, France and England. The peak of footballing dreams come true. Came true.

Days later and people have gradually begun to get back into the flow of their lives. Daniele is back at work in Modena, working in the press office of the city’s university and sending photos to the group chat from his desk.

In a blog, he writes, ​“September 5^th changed our lives but not our approach to how we live the Brigata … We will always be David against Goliath, we will continue to lose matches, maybe not so many, but we will always do it knowing that on the pitch there are everyday heroes, people like us – certainly with better feet than ours – capable of facing the sacred monsters of global football.”

As it stands San Marino are still the worst men’s national team in the world. With the support of the Briagata, it isn’t impossible to imagine they might one day become the second.