Montenegro - who are you and why are you here?

On Tuesday 12th October 2010 England welcome Montenegro to Wembley Stadium to play a fixture in the qualifying campaign for the 2012 European Championships. So who are they and why is this fixture unique? In English eyes of course they are just another minnow nation that need to be put to the sword in the Wembley fortress, but are they, and should we afford them more respect?

Image via Wikipedia

It has long been a view of mine that qualifying competitions of this nature hold very little value, the playing of another fixture of this stature just increases the frustration of the average spectator who wants to see good and competitive football at international level. The group we find ourselves in for the next competition does not hold any promise of exciting football, with the exception of Wales, who we anticipate for historical and geographical reasons, just a series of games to play to ensure our participation in Poland and the Ukraine.

International football is the pinnacle of our game, it should highlight all that's good about the sport and reflect the skill levels needed to be chosen for your national side. And yet this invariably happens. The recent World Cup in South Africa, for various reasons, failed to capture the imagination and left very few embedded glory moments that we replay in our heads over and over again. From an England perspective the two incidents I recall are both disappointments, the disallowed Lampard goal and the Green error. Aside from that the horror show that was the Netherlands attempts to disembowel the Spanish remains uppermost in my mind. Good football? No, as rare as a Scottish team qualifying for anything better than the Mickey Mouse cup.

So what has this got to do with Montenegro?  Well it could be argued that its a further dilution of the standards required to play international football. Montenegro are the newest international side and were formed just after the 2006 World Cup, becoming FIFA's 208th member. 3 years later they are playing England at Wembley in an official competition. At their inception they were ranked 199th in the world, bottom place I might add with 0 points. England are currently ranked 5th. That's like Man Utd playing Forest Green from the Conference. Does that do any of these sides any good at all? I doubt it very much. It probably does more harm for both sides, and prolonging the impatience to see England involved in a decent game of football. At international level they are so few and far between, even during the competition the groups are arranged so that nothing good happens until the knock out stages. No wonder club football holds more interest for the football paying public.



The recent Montenegro victory over Switzerland was a dour affair, yet again ending up with a 1-0 scoreline demonstrating yet again functionality over art. Played 3, won 3, does not give football a reason to pat itself on the back in reflected self satisfaction of a job well done. Rather we should despair that international football is again attempting to achieve even  lower standards. No disrespect to Montenegro, I'm pleased for you and your recent achievements on and off the football field, but not here, not at Wembley and not against England.