The Other Final

In many ways it, of course, bore no relation to the real World Cup final of 2002 taking place in on the same day, but in others it had all the pageantry, atmosphere, and sense of occasion that befits a global football event. On that particular day the cities of Yokohama in Japan and Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan high up in the Himalayas, were linked by a footballing contest. While the pinnacle of the world’s game was being decided in Japan, the two countries ranked at the bottom of FIFA’s meritocracy played out the Other Final to decide who was the worst national team in the world.

An enterprising Dutch film crew, who turned their nation’s disappointment at failing to qualify for the 2002 World Cup into an idea to look at those national teams rather more accustomed to losing than their own. This idea took them to the FIFA website and its world rankings, at the bottom of which sat Montserrat and Bhutan.

Bahamas Sink to the foot of the World Rankings

Following on from Anguilla’s descent a couple of months ago, we once again welcome the arrival of a Caribbean nation to the Worst in the World, with Bahamas joining their near neighbours in this ignominious club. They have sunk to the foot of the FIFA rankings in the latest release.

Bahamas last remaining ranking points, dated back to the World Cup qualifiers for the 2014 tournament when the Bahamas beat the Turks and Caicos Islands 4-0 and 6-0 in their two preliminary round matches. The last of those was played in July 2011, and so the ranking points gained then have now lapsed.

Having won through to the first round proper on that occasion, Bahamas subsequently withdrew due to problems with the construction of their new national stadium. The 23,000 capacity Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium, which was a gift from the People’s Republic of China to the Bahamas, had been completed in time, but work in the surrounding areas hadn’t. Approach roads, car parks and apparently sewerage, were still in need of completion, and were the official reason why the Bahams withdrew from a qualifying group containing Panama, Nicaragua and Dominica. The withdrawal came just a couple of weeks ahead of their first scheduled fixture in Panama.