The Montenegrin national team has only been a FIFA member for four months having been approved entry by the governing body of world soccer this past June. Since it has not yet been able to play in any major competitions, they have scheduled friendlies with teams such as Japan, Colombia, Slovenia, Sweden, and most recently Estonia.
With only five games under its belt, Montenegro can hardly be known as one of the best teams in Europe, but it has proven that it can make a dent or spoil other national teams in major comeptitions. Montenegro's first major competition will be in the European Zone Qualifying Competition for the 2010 World Cup.
In its most recent friendly match against Estonia, Montenegro posted its first a win, defeating Estonia 1-0. A win against Estonia may not be the biggest proof that Montengro is heading where it should be, but atleast the team is getting somewhere. Monetengro did not score its first goal until they played Slovenia in August, a agem taht ended in a 1-1 draw. They then went on lose against Sweden 2-1.
In the most recent FIFA World Rankings, which was released on October 24th, Monetengro was labelled "best mover," moving 15 spots from 186 to 171. The team was first ranked 199 out of over 209 teams that are currently FIFA members when they first appeared in the world rankings in June where they stayed until August. In September, they moved up 13 spots to 186 and eventually to 171 where they are currently. This may not seem very impressive, but for a team that was just recently established, this is very good. A perfect example of a team that started out in a similar way was Croatia and it only took the Croatian national team elven months for them to hit the top 90 after starting out ranked at 117. Montengro is defintely on track to become a spolier for other European team. However, at this time no one should expect them to qualify for the 2010 World Cup just yet, but after scoring against Sweden in a 2-1 loss and being the first to score in that match in the first half until Sweden scored 2 in the second, they are defintely a team to look at as the 1010 World Cup qualifiers start in Europe.
If Montenegro was to prove that they can play tougher European countries, they should play teams such Croatia, Serbia, or Bosnia-Herzegovina--teams in there region that play in a similar type of style. Showing a good performance against these teams may give Montengro some respect as an independent national team. Croatia did offer a friendly that was to be scheduled this past August but the newly created Montenegrin Soccer Federation refused citing teteh fact that they had a match scheduled against Slovenia on August 22nd which was only two days away from the day Croatia wanted to play them.
For more information regarding the Montenegrin national team, check out their offical team profile on FIFA's website.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment