Football in Monaco is one of the most popular sports. The small principality is known worldwide for its high standard of living, luxury and major sporting events. Above all, Formula 1 and tennis. However, football has been gaining ground in recent years.
Although Monaco has one of the biggest football clubs in the French top flight, the local sport is not well established. There is no local league competition and the national football team is barely 20 years old. That’s football in Monaco.
Football teams in Monaco
Monaco is a tiny state with 40,000 inhabitants. It covers an area of barely 200 hectares. Too little land to be able to host a large number of football clubs to create even a local league. However, the great emblem of Monegasque football is well known: AS Monaco.
AS Monaco, the flagship of Monegasque football
AS Monaco is the visible head of Monegasque football. Founded in 1924, it has spent more than 50 seasons in Ligue 1, the French top flight. Among its major achievements are eight league titles, five French cups and four French super cups..
Internationally, AS Monaco have reached a Champions League final. They lost to José Mourinho’s Porto in 2004. Most recently, they reached the semi-finals in the 2017 edition, losing to Juventus and surprising the whole of Europe with their brilliant performance.
Other football teams in Monaco
Monaco is such a small and special country that it has no other football clubs. AS Monaco concentrates all the football players of the country and the surrounding area in its youth academy. They are the big football centre and they absorb any entity. Although previously there were other football teams.
The Monegasque league does not exist today. From 1976 until 2020, however, there was. Amateur clubs participated in which the players were workers in casinos, luxury bars and hospitals. For example, the last league winner in Monaco was before the pandemic and was the construction company Vinci Construction.
Monaco national football team
The Monaco national football team exists. Nobody talks about it, it is not in the media, it has no great players, but it has 40 years of history. It was founded in 1982 and played its first friendly match against Greenland for which no data is available to this day.
The Monaco national football team is an amateur national team. It is not registered with FIFA as it does not have its own league, so it cannot compete in qualification for European and World Cups. Nor in the Nations League. It does not even appear in the UEFA rankings.
History of the Monaco national football team
The Monaco national football team’s matches have been counted since 2001. They beat Tibet 1-2 in a match played in Germany. The most surprising results came in the VIVA World Cup, a competition contested by teams not recognised by FIFA. The Monegasques lost in the final to Lapland by a surprising 1-21 scoreline.
The Monaco national football team has only played 20 official and recognised matches. Many of them against unrecognised national teams. For example, against the Vatican national team, Isle of Man, Provence, Retia, Lapland, or Occitania. They have also played against Kosovo, Gibraltar and Tibet.
Monaco players
There are no clubs in Monaco beyond AS Monaco. Where do the young players who want to play professional football go? Their only way out is to travel to neighbouring countries with much better football. International football academies in Spain are a great option.
SIA Academy has Monaco football representation in its ranks. They are players who have grown up with the success of their home club and want to make it to professional football. They rely on Soccer Inter-Action to compete, train and improve.
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