Liechtenstein

Seoul, 1981: before Liechtenstein's football side had played a single official fixture, it took the field against Malta in an unofficial match on the other side of the world. The real debut came the following year, on 9 March 1982, a 0–1 defeat to Switzerland.

The gap between those two ends of the table shows in the record book. Against Macedonia in 1996 World Cup qualifying, Liechtenstein lost 1–11, still their heaviest defeat. Their best-ever win, a 4–0 dismissal of Luxembourg, came in the same competition eight years later. The high point of the team's history arrived in qualifying for the 2006 World Cup, when they finished sixth in their group on eight points, drawing with Portugal and Slovakia along the way. Promotion has proved just as elusive in the UEFA Nations League: relegated out of Division C in 2023–24, they finished bottom of Division D the following season with two points.

What the team has produced instead is a run of individual careers built almost entirely elsewhere. Mario Frick scored 16 goals in 125 caps, the national record, while also playing in Serie A for Bari, Perugia and Cagliari.

The team, nicknamed the Blue-Reds after their shirts and shorts, plays its qualifiers at the Rheinpark Stadion in Vaduz, in front of a ground that holds under 8,000. Given the geography, Switzerland has stayed the fixture Liechtenstein measures itself against — the opponent of that first match in 1982.