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One of the most fascinating things in European football are the World Cup and European Championship qualifiers because Europe is a continent of enormous football depth, and an open playing field rivaled only by that of South America and Africa.
Whereas CONCACAF has a long tradition and Asia has made progress, both are a long way from matching the strength in depth – in terms of talent and competitiveness – of those three continents.
Virtually every qualifying group in Europe contains three or four teams, maybe even five, with a realistic chance of qualification.
The real difference between the Confederations is not so much between the top sides of each continent, but rather the middle and lower tier sides. Which is where UEFA, COMNEBOL and CAF trump the rest.
But even these Confederations have their whipping boys.
UEFA has 53 member nations (a number rivalled only by CAF), the newest of which is Montenegro. While Europe has always been extremely competitive, the breakups of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia enlarged its membership based and altered the complexion of the international game in many ways.
The ex-Soviet and Yugoslav republics were all legitimate inheritors to great football traditions, and it was only a matter of time before some of them emerged as forces in the European game.
Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine have all qualified for the World Cup. Croatia, Slovenia and Latvia have all qualified for the European Championships.
Teams such as Lithuania and Macedonia have caused major headaches for the giants of Europe. Lithuania drew in Italy in their opening Euro 2008 qualifier not long after the World Cup win, while Macedonia have never lost on English soil, having drawn on both their visits.
UEFA’s smaller member nations include Malta, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and Andorra – whose combined populations easily fits into most cities.
Teams like Albania, Iceland, Finland and, to a lesser degree, Turkey, historically wavered between being “plucky upstarts” capable of upsetting the big guns and alleged “easybeats” – although all of them have come on in leaps and bounds in more recent times.
In fact, even some of the genuine minnows have shown signs of real improvement.
Liechtenstein was once on the receiving end of one of the biggest thrashings in European World Cup qualifying history, an 11-1 loss to Macedonia in 1996. Things could only get better.
And indeed it did.
In the Euro 2004 qualifiers, they managed to restrict England to two 2-0 wins. But it was the 2006 World Cup qualifiers that saw the former whipping boys make a breakthrough: two wins over fellow minnows Luxembourg and a 2-2 draw with Portugal.
And in their final game in Portugal, they were minutes away from claiming another draw before losing 2-1. It was a remarkable improvement, and a campaign they can feel extremely proud of.
Increasing professionalism has helped.
Liechtenstein has its clubs playing in the Swiss league system, and many of its players now play on a professional level in a number of European leagues, the most successful of which is Mario Frick, currently playing in Italy with Siena.
Luxembourg has been known to enjoy the occasional win. However, they have been few and far between.
Their 1-0 win over Belarus in the Euro 2008 qualifiers was their first competitive win for twelve years. Luxembourg has actually produced noteworthy professional footballers: Louis Pilot and Guy Hellers enjoyed long and successful careers in Belgium, while Nico Braun and most recently Jeff Strasser have played top-flight football in France and Germany.
It was fitting, then, that under the tutelage of Hellers as coach, Strasser would score a fine free-kick to open the scores in a historic 2-1 win in Switzerland last year, their first World Cup qualifying win in decades.
Although their player base is naturally small, investment in developing young talent is starting to pay off, making Luxembourg more competitive.
A similar story can be found in Malta, who raised a few eyebrows when they defeated fallen giants Hungary 2-1 in 2006.
Malta also now boast players plying their trade professionally in European leagues. The most notable of the current crop is Barnsley’s Michael Misfud.
Carmel Busuttil, arguably Malta’s greatest ever footballer, enjoyed a successful spell in Belgium with Genk, also captaining the side.
The ever competitive and unpredictable nature of European qualifiers has a new dimension added to it by the improvements shown by the above minnows and by many teams showing they can clearly punch above their weight.
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