Always look on the bright side of life

WHEN people aren’t feeling sorry for them, they’re saying they shouldn’t even be admitted to the top table, but today your frank and fearless columnist asks: who wouldn’t want to play for San Marino?

Obviously I’m not talking to you Ronaldinho, or even you Robbie, devoted readers of these pages though I know you to be but, rather, I’m addressing all those football nuts who never quite made it beyond schoolyard or park and who are now restricted to “expressing themselves” solely through the medium of ‘Angry Fans.’

How different it is for the blessed few of San Marino. When those boys put away their textbooks or clock off from the bank of an evening, they don’t slouch off to the pub to watch all the starry, far away action on the big screen. Instead, they get to be ferried to the airport where they board a plane and fly off to play football in some of the great stadia of Europe (and Lansdowne Road) and against some of the top teams in the world (and Ireland).