From the top of the world to the bottom in consecutive football games | Soccer

“During the international break, St Kitts and Nevis played a pair of friendlies against San Marino, who went in at 210th in the Fifa world rankings. Their next international will be a World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica, who are currently ranked 147 places higher than San Marino. I’d bet the farm on this not being the biggest gap in the rankings between consecutive international opponents: so what is?” asks Jack Hayward.

Stephan Wijnen gets the ball rolling from the recent Euro 2024 qualifiers. “The Netherlands played against France and Gibraltar on 24 and 27 March 2023. France were No 3 in the rankings at that time, with Gibraltar at No 200. That is a gap of 197 places. With 210 countries on the rankings that seems hard to beat.” From the same campaign, Carl O’Reilly points out the Republic of Ireland’s back-to-back games with Gibraltar (then No 201, on 19 June 2023) and France (No 2 on 7 September 2023), for a difference of 199 places.

Tough, but not impossible, especially if you don’t stray far from the original question. “I figured that looking at San Marino’s history would be productive, and finding situations where they were in a qualifying group with high-ranked teams,” begins Rob Lawshaw. “I think the answer is likely to be found in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. In October 2021, Hungary played third-ranked England and got a 1-1 draw at Wembley (sending England subsequently down to fifth). In November, Hungary then faced 210th-ranked San Marino, winning 4-0. That’s a gap of 207 positions.”

However, Eanna Mac Craith (plus Colin Bell and Mike Slattery) can go even further, courtesy of a timeframe when there were 211 teams in the rankings. “During the Euro 2020 qualifiers, Cyprus, Belgium and San Marino were in Group I,” writes Eanna. “On 21 March 2019, Cyprus beat San Marino 5-0 in Nicosia, when the Sammarinese were then No 211. Three days later Belgium visited Nicosia and won 2-0, Belgium being world No 1 at the time. The ranking difference was then 210 places. Kazakhstan repeated that same feat in 2019, losing 3-0 in Brussels on 8 June and beating San Marino 4-0 three days later.”

Going the distance

“Will Portugal v Georgia be the most far-apart country clash in the Euros ever?” posts David Ardisson.

“Not a chance,” writes Jack Hayward. “Portugal and Georgia do have a mighty gap, and a bigger one than you might think. The towns of Fajã-Grande (on the west coast of the island of Flores, in the Atlantic Ocean) and Sabatlo (on Georgia’s border with Azerbaijan), are 6,367 kilometres (3,956 miles) apart. But it’s not the biggest in Euros history … Presenting the Euro 2004 group match between Portugal and Russia. The island of Flores is, as the crow flies, 7,939 kilometres (4,933 miles) from the urban locality of Egvekinot, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug – a greater distance than between the North and South Poles. Portugal won 2-0.”

The proposal: part two

We opened up last week on players proposing during games, but there was another tale worthy of recounting, as flagged by Mark Bennett. “I should mention that the excruciating proposal of France’s manager, Raymond Domenech, after losing in Euro 2008 is up there with the worst of them.”

As Paul Doyle documented at the time:

He played into his detractors hands in the immediate aftermath of France’s defeat to Italy last month, when, in a live television interview, he declined to discuss Les Bleus’ elimination and instead asked his girlfriend, TV presenter Estelle Denis, to marry him. When he did finally address the more pertinent issues, he blamed France’s failure on bad luck, harsh refereeing and unfavourable weather and claimed his only mistake was to have declared before the tournament that France were capable of winning it – he said he should have explained that his real target was the 2010 World Cup.”

And that ended so well …

Knowledge archive

“Following John Barnes, Lee Sharpe, Stan Collymore, Rodney Marsh and Francesco Coco, which other footballers have featured in reality television shows?” wondered James Hartshon in February 2008.

“Observe former Celtic striker Jorge Cadete,” wrote Derek McGee. “He went on to make an appearance on the Portuguese version of Celebrity Big Brother. He gained a small amount of public attention as a result and in 2004 managed to secure a short-term contract with Partick Thistle.” So happy endings all round.

Andrew Robson pointed out that two footballers featured on the German show Ich bin ein Star … Hol mich her raus (I’m a Celebrity …). “In the first series there was Jimmy Hartwig – Kevin Keegan’s strike partner at Hamburg and the first black player to play for Germany,” revealed Andrew. “A later series featured former goalkeeper Eike Immel, who played for Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund and Stuttgart.”

That wasn’t all. “Ilhan Mansiz,” chipped in Ilker Ugur, “who scored the golden goal for Turkey in the 2002 World Cup quarter-final against Senegal, won the figure skating talent show for celebrities two months ago.” We guessed this was something along the lines of Dancing On Ice. And of course who could forget Sasa Curcic, once of Villa and Bolton, winning the Serbian version of Celebrity Big Brother? Ah.

Can you help?

“It seems mandatory these days for a player scoring a hat-trick to get a photo taken at the end of a match with the match ball,” mails Raymond Simpson. “When was the first time a photo like this was taken?”

“Jonathan Hogg, Huddersfield Town captain, has been at the club through 484 league matches,” writes Richard Askham. “The club has an average of 1.17 points per game in the last 11 seasons, which reflects nine seasons of struggle and two top-five finishes. Hogg has made 345 appearances (including 15 as a sub) and has an average of 1.26 points per game. He has missed 139 games, when the team has managed 0.98 points per game. The difference of 0.28 points per game is clearly significant to a club like mine, but I wonder how much bigger differences there are or have been with other long-serving players?”

“Al-Hilal and Al-Merreikh, the two most successful teams in Sudan, will be playing in the Tanzanian league from next season due their home country’s ongoing civil war,” writes Jack Hayward. “Have any other football teams been relocated to a different country’s league system, and how did they get on?”

“Chris Wood is having a pretty good season,” begins Iain Cargill. “Being from New Zealand, whose Fifa ranking is 104, which Premier League players come from countries with lower Fifa rankings?”

“I recently discovered the club badge of Maltese Premier League team Sirens FC, which contains what can only be described as an almost naked mermaid,” notes Cameron McGlone. “This got me wondering: do any other club badges contain scantily-clad individuals?”