World Cup Qualifier: Bosnia-Herzegovina 5-0 Gibraltar

Saturday 25th March 2017
World Cup Qualifying
Stadion Bilino Polje, Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia-Herzegovina 5-0 Gibraltar

While it may be something of a stretch into the realms of fantasy to claim that Gibraltar were robbed in this Saturday evening clash in Zenica, there will be a lingering sense of injustice for the men from the Rock after this latest defeat.

Trailing to an early goal in just the 4th minute from Hertha Berlin’s Vedad Ibisevic, Gibraltar had rallied somewhat and performed admirably through the remainder of the first half. The opener was a fine finish after an even finer lofted ball from Juventus’ Mirjan Pjanic. Gibraltar followers could be forgiven for fearing the worst at this point. But after that early setback there had even been sporadic forays up field with Lee Casciaro having one or two efforts on Asmir Begovic’s goal. One in particular, after a Begovic blunder, led to Casciaro attempting a long range effort on an unguarded net, which was unfortunately mishit off-target. He went close after a free-kick wasn’t cleared too, but sadly it wasn’t to be.

AFCON 2019 Qualifier Preliminary: Djibouti 2-0 South Sudan

22nd March 2017
Africa Cup of Nations Qualifying, Preliminary Round 1st Leg
El Hadj Hassan Gouled Aptidon Stadium, Djibouti City, Djibouti

Djibouti 2-0 South Sudan

It was a decade in the waiting, but Djibouti finally found that winning feeling once more to see off South Sudan in this first leg clash, sealing their rise from the bottom of the world rankings.

Having gone nearly ten years, and 34 matches, since tasting victory when beating Somalia 1-0 in late 2007, this success will be richly savoured by Djibouti, but they shouldn’t get carried away. They have every chance of securing a place in the main group stage by repeating the feat in South Sudan next week. Could they go on an unprecedented two match winning streak? I’m getting carried away…

AFCON Preliminaries

With the recent Africa Cup of Nations finals still fresh in the memory, it seems odd to be talking about the next tournament in two years’ time already, but when your interest is in the weakest of teams, qualifying can start early.

The next AFCON tournament has included a preliminary qualifying round to ensure the numbers for the main group stage of qualifying are even. And so six unfortunates have to play home and away clashes to remove three nations from qualifying.

Friendly: Burundi 1-0 Djibouti

13th March 2017
Friendly International
Stade du Prince Louis Rwagasore, Bujumbura, Burundi

Burundi 1-0 Djibouti

A mere two days after going down 7-0 to Burundi, the two sides pitted their wits against each other once again in Bujumbura and this time Djibouti put up a much improved performance and came away with a much better result.

Making no fewer than 6 changes to the starting line-up from Saturday’s first match, Djibouti kept things distinctly tighter at the back even though they went behind early to a 16th minute strike from Franck Barirengako.

Friendly: Burundi 7-0 Djibouti

11th March 2017
Friendly International
Stade du Prince Louis Rwagasore, Bujumbura, Burundi

Burundi 7-0 Djibouti

In a not wholly untypical revelation, Djibouti sprung this friendly match in Burundi from seemingly nowhere at rather short notice. Not wanting to do things by halves, they play a second friendly in Burundi again on 13th March.

Steady Progress – of the wrong kind

A lack of action on the field for our group of unfortunates hasn’t meant there is nothing to report from a Worst in the World perspective. On the contrary, that lack of action means that all seven teams currently ranked at the foot of the world rankings. have been steadily clocking up additional months in that position. As a consequence each nation is climbing up the all-time worst in the world rankings.

For the uninitiated, this list doesn’t imply that the current worst teams are any better or worse than their predecessors on the field – they have all spent time as officially the worst national teams in the world after all. What it does do, however, is log how many published world rankings each nation sat at the bottom of. And this current lack of action for certainly six of the seven nations means they are adding to their tally significantly.

Here’s a brief rundown of what this all means for each of our worst in the world nations.