At any semi-serious level of club football, the league system usually ensures that teams are reasonably evenly matched. There are often teams like Manchester City, who dominate to a certain degree. And – at the other end of the spectrum – others like the woeful Derby County side of 2007/08, who collected just 11 points all season. But it is rare for teams to be so bad that they can barely win a game, or endure extended runs without managing to take all three points.
International football is a little different in that there is no promotion and relegation – competitions like the Nations League aside – and there are far fewer teams against which each nation can play. The English football pyramid, which includes nine levels (the Premier League is level one, going down to the National League at level five, with four lower tiers beneath that) has an estimated 7,000 different teams. In contrast, FIFA, which spans the entire planet, has just 211 national teams that are members (though a small number of non-member nations can also play international football).
Clearly then, on the international stage there is less scope for a team, or country, to “find their level”, and play regularly against teams that they are relatively evenly matched with. This means that long runs of defeats, or winless streaks, are fairly common on the international stage.
Some of the nations that fans associate with being among the worst in the world, if not the very worst, include San Marino, Liechtenstein and Andorra. In the UK we tend to focus on the fates of the worst European teams, but many small nations in Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere habitually struggle to put the wins on the board.
However, of late, something strange has been happening. Football’s worst teams keep on winning. OK, “keep on winning” might be somewhat misleading, but over the past few months, the record of the longest winless run in international football has changed multiple times.
San Marino Finally End Horror Streak
The worst streak without a win in the history of international football ended on the 5th of September 2024 when San Marino finally won. Ranked 210th in the world at the time, they overcame fellow minnows Liechtenstein 1-0, just as they had done in their last win 20 years before!
Twenty years without tasting victory must have been demoralising, to say the least, with San Marino playing 140 games without in between. Liechtenstein were 199th in the world at the time and are one of the few teams that San Marino really have a chance against. The last time they beat them, in 2004, it was a friendly, so this success was even more historic, being the microstate’s first competitive win ever!
Overall they have played 210 times, managing just that brace of wins against Liechtenstein. They have lost 199 of their games with a meagre nine draws, meaning they have lost almost 95% of the games they have played. All that said, they are no longer the holder of the very unwanted record of the longest international winless run.
Liechtenstein Bounce Back
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Liechtenstein are no stranger to being beaten but even for them, going down to San Marino must have hurt. Liechtenstein, a double-landlocked principality bordering Switzerland, have never qualified for a major tournament. In World Cup qualifiers they have lost 61 of 70 matches, with a similar record of defeats (64 out of 78) in the Euros, whilst in the Nations League they have played 16, winning twice, and drawing thrice.
In fact, Liechtenstein only barely have the upper hand in meetings with San Marino, so the defeat will not have been the hugest shock. The pair have met seven times, with two draws, the two aforementioned “upsets” and two wins for debt-free Liechtenstein. When San Marino recorded their most recent win they passed the baton on, so to speak, to Liechtenstein.
It also meant they dropped to 204th in the world but they did not take defeat lying down. On the 10th of October they faced football powerhouse Hong Kong in a friendly game on home soil at the Rheinpark Stadion. Captain Nicolas Hasler got the winning goal, the son of perhaps the nation’s greatest ever player, Rainer, netting the only goal of the game after 16 minutes.
Hasler has 98 caps at the time of writing and plays for Vaduz in the Swiss Challenge League – Switzerland’s second tier. It was his seventh international goal and the fact he scored is a good omen – Liechtenstein have won four, drawn two and lost just once when he has found the back of the net.
Andorra Join the Fun
Andorra (population 80,000) had dropped down to 169th in the FIFA world rankings after an update on the 19th of September. They had previously been at the lofty height of 164, with their highest-ever position being 125th back in 2005. Oh, the golden age of football in Andorra! On the other side of the coin, at various times over the past 15 years they have been outside FIFA’s top 200, with a low point of 206 in 2012.
With the wins of, first San Marino and then Liechtenstein, two of their traditional rivals in the basement of European football, Andorra then had the honour of being the team enduring the longest wait for a win. In 2024 they drew with South Africa but then suffered six straight defeats without even scoring. Prior to that draw with South Africa, they lost five in a row – again without scoring – going back to a 0-0 draw against Belarus. Going back further we see another seven winless games, though they did earn the odd draw and some creditable losses: 2-1 to Switzerland being a particularly “good” defeat for the minnows.
All in all, that meant their last win came way back on the 22nd of September 2022, over two years ago. That day they beat Liechtenstein – of course – 2-0. Twenty long games without managing to earn a win but then came the day in the sun: the 13th of October 2024.
A home tie against San Marino is just the sort of fixture Andorra boss Koldo Alvarez would have wanted to snap that run. And snap it his troops did, winning with ease, 2-0, thanks to two goals inside the first 39 minutes.
Who is the Record Holder Now?
Due to the unheralded brilliance the teams above, and others from Europe, exhibit when it comes to not winning, the record is typically held by a UEFA side. However, after this trio of wins, the record now belongs to a team from Africa. There has been a little debate over which nation is now on the longest winless run but we are confident it is Somalia. They beat Burundi 1-0 on the 13th of December 2019 and have since failed to win any of the subsequent 14 matches. They play Burundi again though on the 25th of October so watch this space!