The Night Thread Mk. IX

What the fuck are you talking about?

Monaco has a team in the French leagues, iirc, got to the Champions League final, though obviously doesn't recruit just those who are Monaco citizens.

Greenland are not FIFA members because they don't have any natural grass pitches, they had an artificial pitch installed recently but before that all they had was gravel pitches.

Nothing better than gravel pitches.

That's a common misconception. They're not members of FIFA because they're a Danish dependency. They're in the process of becoming more autonomous.

How come Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the US Virgin Islands, etc, are full FIFA members then, since they're part of the UK or US.

iirc I think Monaco want an FA, but France or FIFA were worried about AS Monaco joining the new Monaco league or something, making the process more difficult.

Because they applied for FIFA membership and no one objected. There are no set of strict rules to FIFA membership, it's all done on a case by case basis.

Really? A national league in Monaco? It's so small.

Yeah seems bizarre. Can't be room for more than a couple of stadiums surely? And they wouldn't have the opportunity to play in Europe either, at least until the league coefficient was raised significantly.

The Faroe Islands are also a Danish dependency yet they've been FIFA members for more than 20 years now.

It really is the lack of FIFA-standard pitches that have kept them out. No acceptable playing-field means no official FIFA-matches which in turn makes FIFA membership pointless.


I'd be very surprised if there were more than two football pitches within the principality.

Anyway, a Monegasque national team would make San Marino, Andorra and the Faroe Islands look like Spain or Brazil. They'd be the worst European national team by a ludicrous margin.

If you're born in Monaco, are you given French citizenship as well? Never really thought about it before but I can't imagine meeting someone who referred to themselves as Monegasque or whatever Franck said.

I don't think I took into account how small Monaco was. I assumed it was about the size of Andorra or something. According to Wiki there is several teams based there though.

I can't remember where I read the article but I think it may have been an old FourFourTwo or World Soccer, but it said Monaco would have no interest in joining the Monagesque Federation, but the French FA put the block on it anyway just in case. Although arguablly it would be a good thing for AS Monaco, if they could join the Monagesque Federation and compete in their National Cup and stay in the French Leagues, (like FC Vaduz), they would have an almost guarenteed Europa place.

Anyway in reaserching this I learned the Vatican City also have a team and their biggest defeat was against Palestine. MON.

Pretty sure you need Monegasque parents to be Monegasque. Some 75%-80% of the population of Monaco are foreigners.

You can also naturalise as a citizen of Monaco, though they don't allow dual-citizenship, at least not for naturalised citizens.

In fact the only Monaco-born and raised player to have made it through the clubs youth system in ages, Torben Joneleit, is a German citizen. The only Monegasque player to have played for the club that I know of is Armand Forcherio, who played for them in the 60's and had a brief stint as manager in the 70's.

Everything's better than a red ash pitch. Winter in school, gravel pitch and playing football with a Mitre Mouldmaster. Very little worse. Getting a deflection in was a suicide attempt.

This is a joke. Complete joke
They even have a cup competition. Okay, it is for all Roman seminaries, but anyway its funny.


National football team of Vatican City.

And this is what Wiki adds to it.


Can you be a Vatican citizen anyway?

Yes. People who work for the Catholic church in certain capacities, like the pope, the cardinals and the Swiss guard, are Vatican citizens. They are only citizens for as long as they work for the Vatican though.

I think the term used for a resident of the Vatican is 'Child Molester'

So are the Faroe Islands and they have a football team. Bjork wrote a song about it. It's called Declare Independance..

It's something to do with how willing the Faroes were to get FIFA status. I can't be arsed to do the googling, but the artificial pitch story is not the reason why Greenland do not have FIFA status. It is because they have only recently tried to become a FIFA member and that up until recently were too dependent on Denmark to be considered truly separate in identity.

Sounds reasonable. To be honest, we're probably ok for FIFA nations in Europe now anyway. Can't imagine a trip to Greenland is going to go down well with eastern European countries.

I can vividly imagine Spain playing here.

Greenland's a dump.

I've just read that Gibraltar's now a provisional member of FIFA as of last month. Not sure if that means if they'll be involved in qualifying for Euro 2016 though.

It's weird looking back at my old school friends on Facebook. Thinking about the weird circumstances I've been in, the work I've put into myself and all the people that have come and gone in the last 7 or so years. In no way am I the same person I was when I was friends with that lot and while I'm not exactly proud of who I am, I'm certainly satisfied with who I am now and the stuff, both good and bad, that's happened to me has at the very least strengthened me and made me more sure of who I am, what I believe in and what I want out of life. I honestly don't think I have any regrets at this point in my life.

But then when I look back at these people... they seem exactly the same. They're all still friends, they're dating within that group still and they all seem perfectly happy. I'm not hating on them, not at all, but it seems a bit strange to me. It looks like these people knew who they were at 13 and they held onto that. They found their friends at that point and then they all just grew up with each other and nothing really happened. They were went to college, went to uni, came back and things are exactly how they were.

It just makes me think. If I never started my ex and they didn't make it clear that they didn't want me around them anymore, would I be like one of them? Would I be happy like that? It's weird how all these small, half chance things can have such a massive impact on everything down the line. I find it somehow relaxing looking back at how it all fit together.

Yeah TS was right, he wasn't the most depressing/depressed person on here.

I'm not depressed?

The dilemma.
This
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