‘We’re believers, not losers’: meet superfans of world’s worst team

San Marino’s 12th man came from far and wide to watch first win in 20 years. Now, they want more.

San Marino players race from the bench to celebrate with goal scorer Nicko Sensoli. Picture: X

They call themselves Brigata Mai I Gioia, or Never Any Joy Brigade, the long-suffering group of San Marino fans, who can at last say they saw their team win a competitive match.

Not just any team, but officially the worst in the world, sitting 210th out of 210 in the FIFA world rankings. For the first time, San Marino have three points next to their name in a league table. Overall, it’s now 142 games played, won one.

Nicko Sensoli scored the winning goal against Liechtenstein in the UEFA Nations League last Thursday, the 19-year-old midfielder who was not born when San Marino last felt the rush of victory.

That win also came against Liechtenstein, in 2004, but that was just a friendly. Normal service was resumed on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), when San Marino fell to a 1-0 defeat in Moldova, but it will do little to dampen the joy of a famous night.

Sensoli knows what it means to a tiny mountainous micro-state in northern Italy, with its population of a little over 33,000. He was growing up during San Marino’s 20 consecutive matches between 2008 and 2011 when they failed to score a single goal and caught the majority of their decade-long losing run from 2004 when they racked up 61 defeats in a row.

Towards the end of that streak, a group of friends from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna visited San Marino, took the chance to watch a game and saw a void they felt needed filling. “They saw there weren’t any supporters,” Daniele Dei, now organiser of what ­became Brigata Mai I Gioia, says. “The stadium never had any joy. The idea was to support these players because they had nobody supporting them. That was it.”

The fan group now draws its members not just from Italy, but all over Europe. Inside the Stadio Olimpico on Thursday was Josef Junker, who is 70, from Ingolstadt in Germany, and has been to every San Marino home game for the past 11 years. After the victory over Liechtenstein, which he attended with his son, Dominic, they began the 11-hour drive home. “Dominic was angry with me because he missed the goal,” Josef says.

There was also Riccardo Mariotti, who has his own personal reason for cheering on San Marino. “I’m not a loser but I felt a connection with San Marino. They represent me. I am a fighter and a believer.”

When the final whistle blew in Serravalle, several San Marino players fell on their backs like they had won the World Cup. “I was overwhelmed by the emotions,” Matteo Valli Casadei, the 19-year-old midfielder, says.

Some of his teammates were in tears. Others tore off bits of turf to keep as a souvenir. In the changing room, the players bounced up and down and squirted water like it was champagne. Understandably, nobody had thought to put any bottles on ice.

Yet optimism had been growing. Losses have been narrowing, and between October and March, they scored in four games. Roberto Cevoli, an Italian former defender for Reggina and Torino, took over as manager in December and handed debuts to 13 new players. Asked if he was nervous through that last half an hour, Cevoli said: “Not ­really, we kept calm and stayed in the game until the end.”

In the stands, it was different. “It was half an hour of suffering, pure suffering,” Daniele says.

“When the referee made the peep-peep … I don’t have words, it was spectacular, like winning the Champions League.”

There was one small blot on the victory. San Marino’s chances of moving off the bottom of the world rankings were hit by Anguilla, ranked 209th, winning their first match since 2010, beating Turks & Caicos Islands 2-0.

“We will always be Never Any Joy,” Daniele says.

THE TIMES