Soccer (football) in Vatican City

Hey fellow adventurers! This is a fun post that I was not expecting to write when I chose to write about Vatican City this month, but I’m glad that I can. Vatican City, like many European countries, loves soccer! Vatican City even has its own (horrible) national soccer team! The only ones that are allowed to join though, are members of the Swiss guard and museum guards. That makes it very hard to meet up and practice, none-the-less compete. They are one of the only national teams in the world that are not a member of FIFA (The Fédération Internationale de Football Association). They’ve only competed in a few official games, and have never won. They’ve also competed a few times non-officially, and only won once I believe. If you want to learn more about them, I highly encourage it! I hope you get a kick out of reading about this team, like I did. It’s a short article:

http://vatican.com/articles/info/the_vaticans_national_football_team-a4142

However, that’s not even the biggest soccer news that comes from Vatican City. The Centro Sportivo Italiono (CSI) hosts the Clericus Cup, an annual soccer tournament in which teams from Roman Collages compete against each other. Players are generally studying to become priests, but a handful of players are ordained priests. Officially, the goal of the league is to “reinvigorate the tradition of sport in the Christian community” and has been called the “clerical equivalent of soccer’s World Cup.” Below I’ll post a short video of them playing in the Clericus Cup, and some players being interviewed.

That’s all for this post! Hopefully you enjoyed this even if you’re not a huge soccer fan. I prefer baseball or muggle quiditch personally. Thank you so much for reading! And as always, until our next adventure!

4,725 thoughts on “Soccer (football) in Vatican City”

  1. It is fascinating to learn that Vatican City has its own national football team. It makes total sense that scheduling practices and competing would be tough when the roster is limited to Swiss Guards and museum staff. The Clericus Cup also sounds like such a unique tournament for the Roman colleges. Thanks for sharing this fun look into a lesser-known side of Vatican culture!

  2. It is fascinating to learn that Vatican City has its own national soccer team, especially with the roster limited to Swiss Guards and museum staff. Given those strict eligibility rules, it makes complete sense that practicing and organizing matches would be such a challenge. The Clericus Cup also sounds like a very unique tournament. Thanks for sharing these fun, lesser-known sports facts about the Vatican!

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  4. Aw, this was a very good post. Finding the time and actual effort to generate a very good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate a lot and don’t manage to get anything done.

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