When Bad met Worse

THE IDEA began at a Dutch TV planning meeting. What about a game between the two worst nations in football on the same day as the World Cup final? And so it came to pass. Simon Lewis reports

IF ONLY Montserrat had had Don Revie as their manager.

The Don, the man who dragged Leeds United kicking and screaming - but mostly kicking - to English foot-ball’s top table in the late 1960s was renowned for making his inscrutably compiled dossiers on the opposition mandatory bedtime reading for his players.

One look at the Revie file on Bhutan and the boys from the volcano-stricken Caribbean island would never have agreed to the 'other World Cup final' between the worst teams planet, just hours before the real thing took place in Yokohama between Brazil and Germany 10 days ago.

At least, not in the tiny Bhutan capital of Thimphu, 2250 metres (7500 ft) above sea level - in the monsoon season.

Just one glimpse of the section marked Health Risks would have alerted them to the perils of playing a match in a country where altitude sickness is one of the chief causes for illness.

And the page marked When To Go could have alerted the kit man to pack the odd anorak or two as between June and August is the time of year travellers are advised to AVOID.

But then the late lamented Leeds manager’s organisational skills were always undervalued. And so it was that the footballers of Montserrat, officially ranked as the 203rd and worst team in the world, journeyed from the beaches of the Caribbean to the foothills of the Himalayas to the play the team rated just one place above them.

According to the Lonely Planet guidebook to Bhutan, Thimphu, the capital, lies in a beautiful, wooded valley, sprawling up a hillside on the bank of the Thimphu river.

It is the only capital in the world without traffic lights, thanks to the vigilance of the locals who, when a set was installed several years ago, complained about its impersonality and enforced their removal within days.

In autumn, from late September to late November, the skies are clear and the high mountain peaks are visible.

In June, half a metre of rain regularly buckets down on the streets on Thimphu.

Bhutan is the youngest member of FIFA and its first forays into international soccer included a 20-0 defeat by mighty Kuwait in 1999.

Football has been played there for 70 years but there are only a handful of club sides and just a single pitch, making international improvement more than a little difficult. But Bhutan’s problems fade in comparison with those faced by Montserrat.

It joined FIFA in the mid-1990s but volcanic eruptions in 1996 rendered more than half the island uninhabitable and covered the only major pitch with ash.

Ranked 203rd in the world, Montserrat have just nine points in the latest rankings pre-World cup leaders France had 802. The idea of 'the other final' came from a Dutch documentary company Kessels Kramer which, with partners in Japan and Italy, hoped to raise the profile of both countries.

"It is not about who wins or loses, but about the celebration of two countries which, despite obstacles, share a love of the beautiful game," Kessels Kramer said.

"Both the event and film are strictly not-for-profit initiatives, solely for idealistic purposes."

The match took place in Thimphu’s Changlimithang Stadium and featured a Montserrat side made up of players from the island plus British-based islanders exiled by the volcano’s recent violent reawakening.

Britain used to govern Montserrat and England’s FA and FIFA have been instrumental in trying to restart soccer on the island. Football is seen as a positive force for stabil-ising society after more than half the population were forced to move to other Islands and Britain after the eruption of the Soufriere volcano.

A soccer complex is being built and is expected to be opened this month.

The FA provided guidance on setting up clubs and leagues and also trained Montserrat’s national team coach Paul Morris, an Englishman with the local police force.

The national league re-started in 2000 with five teams but there are still only about 150 amateur players in a population of 5,000.

"Montserrat is a classic example of a country with a huge enthusiasm to learn, but suffering not only from a lack of funding for the game but the negative forces of nature as well," said Jane Bateman, the FA’s head of international relations, whose organisation also supplied the referee for the Bhutan clash.

Preparations for the match started last December and the Caribbean team arrived on the Tuesday before the match, plenty of time to acclimatise to the high altitude, or so they thought.

By the time kick-off arrived, the rarefied atmosphere had stricken eight of their players with altitude sickness and viral infection and the islanders hardly looked capable of threatening an upset.

The contest between the islanders and the hill people began in a festive mood with around 15,000 fans watching an hour-long pre-match dance programme showcasing the Buddhist traditions of the eastern Himalayan country.

Thousands of schoolchildren were dressed in the home side’s yellow and orange and, showing an unrivalled grasp of fair play, Montserrat’s green attire to cheer both sides. It failed to inspire the visitors.

Bhutan captain Wangyel Dorji, who recovered from an eye infection to lead his side, scored in the third minute to put Bhutan 1-0 ahead.

He sent a feeble header past the shaky goal-keeper Cecil Lake for Bhutan’s early lead off a Kinley Dorji corner.

The Bhutan captain, who had played professional soccer in India, then bent a free-kick from the edge of the box to make it 2-0 in the 67th minute before striker Dinesh Chhetri scored from close range after good work from the busy Kinley Dorji in the 75th minute.

Two minutes later, Wangyel completed his hat-trick and Bhutan’s domination over their Caribbean rivals with a gentle tap-in off a Kinley Dorji pass.

Not surprisingly Montserrat coach William Lewis attributed his team’s lacklustre performance to the altitude.

"The altitude played a very big role," he said. "We landed last Tuesday and I think it would have been better if we had come two weeks ago to get better acclimatised."

Hat-trick scorer Wangyel Dorji was thrilled. "Initially, my target was to score at least two, but I managed three goals," he said after the game.

He said Bhutan could do much better with more exposure.

"For the last three-four weeks we have been training very hard," said Bhutan coach Aric Schanz of Holland, who had been appointed earlier this month specifically for this game.

"I hoped the boys would translate that into goals, and they did."

Khare Basnet, general secretary of the Bhutan Football Federation said a similar game should be organised every four years, but hopefully without Bhutan. "We are not playing for rankings," he said.

"But now that we have organised this match and done well, we could appeal to FIFA for an improvement in the ranking."

Despite Bhutan’s win, the trophy was shared by both teams in true Corinthian style before the worst international players in the world sat down together in front of a television to watch the real thing in Yokohama.

With sick bags at the ready no doubt.