Football
Tiny island nation savours its turn with World Cup trophy
The Fifa World Cup trophy. PHOTO/ FILE
Their national team is struggling and they don’t even feature in the Fifa World rankings, but football remains their favourite sport.
Perhaps that’s why Fifa and Coca Cola could not just ignore São Tomé e Príncipe as they gave the island nation at least a day to catch a glimpse of the World Cup trophy, never mind that few people can trace where these two tiny islands are on the map.
Well, the Portuguese speaking island nation is situated in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Africa. São Tomé is undoubtedly the footballing hotbed of the two Mediterranean islands that make up the country.
With 96 per cent of the population of São Tomé e Príncipe, São Tomé has virtually provided every single player to the national team throughout the entire 21 years in which the governing body of the island’s game - Federação Santomense de Futebol - has been affiliated to Fifa.
International fixture
There are almost 18 league teams to split between just 157,000 people, giving the country one of the lowest league club per capita ratio in the world.
One would think the soccer mad islands would have a fairly decent national team but despite all this, the domestic situation is in complete disarray.
The major soccer championship, a play-off between the league winners of the São Tomé e Príncipe islands, has been intermittent and played on an ad hoc basis.
More miseries were heaped on football lovers on the island when their national team was withdrawn from the 2010 World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
This has obviously had a detrimental affect on the national team as the recent lack of competitive teams saw the country being dropped from October’s Fifa ranking after it failed to play a recognised international fixture for more than four years.
The islanders forgot these shortcomings for a moment and soothed their hearts by welcoming the Coca Cola Fifa World Cup trophy entourage. The ceremonies were led by their Prime Minister Joaquim Rafael Branco and President Fradique de Menezes in their capital, Sao Tome.
The trophy moves to Gabon on Friday.
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Congratulations to the São Tomé e Príncipe team for doing their country proud. I had to read and re-read the following sentence several times. Talk about verbosity: With 96 per cent of the population of São Tomé e Príncipe, São Tomé has virtually provided every single player to the national team throughout the entire 21 years in which the governing body of the island’s game - Federação Santomense de Futebol - has been affiliated to Fifa.
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