In the European Cup qualifying match held last night local time, the Andorra team defeated the Moldova team 1-0 at home, winning its first European qualifying victory since the team was founded, ending a 56-game losing streak.
In the 63rd minute of the game, Andorra central defender Marc Vales received a corner kick from his teammate from the right and scored with a header, scoring the only goal of the game. This is the first goal scored by Andorra in this European preliminaries. After Andorra scored, the whole team celebrated wildly. Valles is the number one star in the Andorra team. He currently plays for the Norwegian second-tier team Sannafjord. Their goal hero Mark Valles played for the Real Madrid C team in the 2012-13 season and made 7 appearances. In addition to him, Andorra has three overseas players, but they all play for teams in Spain's fourth tier or even regional leagues.
In the end, with Valles' only goal, Andorra defeated Moldova 1-0. This was their first victory in the history of European preliminaries. After the final whistle, the Andorra team rushed into the stadium to celebrate wildly, and then held hands and collectively thanked the fans who came to support the team. Andorra not only gained its first victory in the European preliminaries, but also ended the team's 56-game losing streak in the European preliminaries. The last time they won was against Liechtenstein in March last year, 565 days have passed.
Andorra is a world-famous pocket country, located at the junction of France and Spain, with a total land area of only 468 square kilometers. According to this year's census, there are only 72,589 Andorran citizens (as for WeChat, it shows that there are 25 million users from "Andorra"). Data shows that there are nearly 200 registered players in Andorra. The Andorra Football Association was established in 1994 and joined UEFA and FIFA in 1996. There are 8 teams in Andorra's domestic league, and most of the members of the Andorra national team come from the domestic league. Since joining FIFA and UEFA, Andorra has had a dismal record in important international competitions, with 2 wins, 2 draws and 45 losses in the World Cup preliminaries. The last time it won an official game was an upset 1-0 victory over Hungary in the World Cup preliminaries in June 2017. The record in the European preliminaries is even worse. They lost all 56 games before. Now this humiliating record has been broken.
Andorra is actually no stranger to Chinese fans. In 2004, the then national football coach Ali Han led the national football team to fly to Europe to train in preparation for the World Cup preliminaries. At that time, the national football team invited Andorra to warm up. As a result, the two sides drew 0-0, and the national football team was almost surrounded throughout the game. The opponents were unable to score goals. The starting lineup at that time included Zheng Zhi, Feng Xiaoting , Xu Yunlong , Xiao Zhanbo, Zhou Haibin, Zheng Bin, Wang Peng, Zhang Yuning, Wei Xin, Yang Pu, and Liu Yunfei. At that time, Andorra coach Rodrigo teased the Chinese team: "A team selected from 1.3 billion people should have better performance." "Andorra Daily News" sarcastically said that the Chinese team that participated in the World Cup in South Korea and Japan was not strong at all. Judging from this game, the Chinese team is still 10,000 light years away from the world's top teams.
