By Andrew Warshaw
November 15 – The debate over whether Europe’s minnows should have their own pre-qualifying competition for major tournaments is nothing new but Germany’s Thomas Muller has stoked an unsavoury spat with officials of San Marino following his team’s 8-0 demolition of the 201st-ranked FIFA nation.
Muller, who failed to find the net, said that playing a “team of amateurs” in a World Cup qualifier put German players at risk of injury while Bayern Munich chief Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said “San Marino has nothing to do with professional football”.
The comments prompted outrage in the tiny principality with San Marino Secretary of State for Tourism and Sport, Teodoro Lonfernini, calling for a formal apology amid accusations of German arrogance.
“Germany are world champions, but they are not the master of the world,” he said while San Marino Olympic Committee spokesman Alan Gasperoni, who is also director of communications for the local FA, told Muller that Germany “does not own the game”.
The game “served to show that football belongs to everyone who loves it and we are part of that, whether you like it or not,” Gasperoni added in a 10-point rebuttal which he posted in an open letter on Facebook.
The letter read as follows:
“Dearest Thomas Muller,
You’re right. The games like that on a Friday night, they’re nothing. To you. On the other hand, dear Thomas, you do not need to come to San Marino for almost nothing in a weekend in which, without the Bundesliga, you could have spent with your wife on the sofa of your luxury villa or, who knows, you could have taken part in some events organised by your sponsors to bank several thousand euros. I believe you, but allow me to give 10 good reasons for which I think the San Marino-Germany match was very useful and if only you could think about it and let me know what you think:
- It served to show you that not even against the teams as poor as ours you can’t score a goal – and don’t say you weren’t pissed when Simoncini stopped you scoring…
- It served to make it clear to your managers (and even at Beckenbauer and Rummenigge) that football is not owned by them but by of all those who love it, among which, like it or not, WE are included.
- It served to remind hundreds of journalists from all over Europe that there are still guys who follow their dreams and not your rules.
- It served to confirm that you Germans you will never change and that history has taught you that “bullying” is not always guarantee of victory.
- It served to show the 200 guys in San Marino who play the game for whatever reason why their coaches ask them to always work their hardest. Who knows – maybe one day all their sacrifice will not be repaid with a game against the champions of the world.
- It served to your Federation (and also to ours) to collect the money of image rights with which, in addition to paying you for your trouble, they can build pitches for the kids of your own country, schools, and make football stadiums safer… Our Federation, I’ll let you in on a secret, is building a new football pitch in a remote village called Acquaviva. You could build it with six months of your salary, we’ll do it with the rights of 90 minutes of game. Not bad right?
- It served to a country as big as your pitch in Munich to go in the paper for a good reason, because a football match is always a good reason.
- It served to your friend Gnabry to begin with, in the national team and scoring three goals.
- It made some Sanmarinese people a little happy to remember that we have a real national team.
- It’s served to make me realise that even if you wear the most beautiful adidas kits, underneath you’re always the ones that put white socks under their sandals.
With Love, your Alan.”
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1714158312labto1714158312ofdlr1714158312owedi1714158312sni@w1714158312ahsra1714158312w.wer1714158312dna1714158312