Roy Chipolina is the captain of the Gibraltar National football team. He’s also a customs clerk.
Goalkeeper Jordan Perez is a fireman. Defender Ryan Casciaro and his brother Lee, a forward, are both cops. Their other brother Kyle, also a forward, is a shipping clerk. Midfielder Aaron Payas is a lawyer. Midfielder Brian Perez is an electrician.
Gibraltar, a country on the Iberian Peninsula that basically contains a big rock and a town of 30,000 residents, is trying to qualify for Euro 2016. The country was recently admitted to UEFA, and a FIFA application is pending.
We hope they qualify for the Euros, if only because they will be incredibly fun to root for. You’ve heard of underdog stories. This is an underdog story.
The ultimate underdog story, really. The odds are about a bazillion to one that they qualify. Their group includes defending World Cup champ and current “team that everyone is terrified to play” Germany, as well as Scotland, who gave the Germans a good game on Sunday, Ireland and Poland, who thumped Gibraltar 7-0 in the rock’s first Euro qualifying match ever.
Gibraltar’s first official match happened less than a year ago, in November 2013. Their total record as a national team: 1-3-2. They beat Malta for their first win on June 4. They haven’t faced the type of competition exhibited by the Euro qualifiers yet, though, and we’ve seen how that’s turned out so far.
I still have faith, though. Gibraltar will probably get the snot beat out of them by everyone in their group except maybe Georgia. Winning a game would be the greatest football achievement in the country’s history. So they almost definitely will return home humiliated by the established footballing countries in their group.
But they might not.
And that’s an underdog.
