It's international week again, and there's only one story that matters. Wales — a small country in the British Isles roughly the size of Wales — need to take just one point from their games against Bosnia & Herzegovina and Andorra to qualify for the 2016 European Championships. Should they do so, then it will only be their second appearance at a major international tournament, and the first came at the 1958 World Cup. They got to the quarter-finals then; the country's been waiting 58 years for another crack at the big time.
A history of countries that have been to exactly 1 major soccer tournament
If Wales qualify for Euro 2016, it will be their second trip to a major international tournament. But who are the other teams stuck on just one appearance?
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Lovely stuff for the Welsh, of course, assuming they manage it (touch wood, cross fingers, uncross fingers because it’s quite hard to type with crossed fingers, cross toes). But while the world is full of countries that have never made it to any international tournament — of FIFA’s 209 teams, 68 have never made it out of qualifying — rarer are those in the club that Wales are, in theory, about to leave. So who are the other teams around the world that have tasted a major international tournament just once, and how long have they been waiting for their second shot? Who else is in the One Time Club? Well, glad you asked! Since, er, that’s what the rest of this piece is about.
First the big news: there is no other international team that’s been waiting as long as Wales for their second major tournament appearance. Indeed in Europe only one nation comes close, and while the world is a strange, volatile and unpredictable place, we don’t think East Germany are in any danger of adding to their appearance at the 1974 World Cup.
More recently, Slovakia in 2010 and Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2014 have just one major tournament to their name, though the former should reach Euro 2016 and the latter still can. And there is only one team who have been to the Euros without having also made it along to at least one World Cup: Latvia, in 2004. Marian Pahars took them there as a player, though he's been unable to repeat the trick as a manager, and they're out of the running for next summer's bonanza.
There are, as it goes, entire continents with no members of this exclusive club. South America avoid the problem by inviting everybody — all 10 members — along to every Copa America, while it’s a curious oddity that no country that has been to the OFC Nations Cup, has been on fewer than two occasions. CONCACAF, meanwhile, has three nations that qualify: Belize, Nicaragua and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Though since they’ve only been waiting since 2013, 2009 and 1996 respectively, they’ve some way to go before they can match Wales’ patience.
To Africa, where we find four countries that meet our criteria. Two are recent inductees to the One Time Club, Rwanda and Botswana, who made it to the African Cup of Nations in 2004 and 2012, respectively. But the other two are longer-suffering. Tanzania’s only tournament appearance came at the 1980 AFCON and though they finished bottom of their group, they did achieve a creditable draw with the more traditionally powerful Cote d’Ivoire. For Mauritius, we have to go even further back, to 1974. Sadly, they conceded eight goals in three games and didn’t manage a single point.
But it’s in Asia where we find Wales’ closest challengers. Fully nine members of the Asian Football Confederation have been to the AFC Asian Cup on exactly one occasion, and while four of those have come since the turn of the millennium — Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Lebanon and Palestine — the other five have all been waiting around for at least 30 years. In 1980, Bangladesh made their one and so far only tilt at glory, though they lost all four games and finished with a disastrous goal difference of -15. Singapore did a little better in 1984, picking up a win and a draw, though the achievement of qualification is sullied somewhat by the fact that they did so as hosts. Not really in the spirit of things, Singapore.
Going even further back, we find South Yemen (1976, two games, no points, no goals) and Cambodia, who were competing as the Khmer Republic. The Cambodians made it out of the group stage with a win and a loss, and then lost narrowly to eventual champions Iran in the semifinals; not bad for a country in the middle of a civil war.
But the country that will inherit Wales' mantle, qualification allowing, is Myanmar. Ten years after the Welsh went to Switzerland, Burma — the name changed in 1989 — went to Iran for the fourth-ever Asian Cup. And, unlike most of their companions in the One Time Club, they did pretty well. Five teams entered the tournament and Burma, with two wins and a draw, finished as runners-up in the round robin format. Their only loss came to the hosts Iran, who won the whole thing with a perfect record.
Sadly for Burmese/Myanmar football, they didn’t build on this decent showing. Indeed, they didn’t even attempt to qualify again until 1984, something we can probably ascribe to the political situation back at home. Still, come next week, they’ll likely be able to take their place as the most venerable member of the One Time Club, and perhaps the most successful as well. Unless, of course, the unthinkable happens, and Gareth Bale and company contrive to trip over Andorra. In which case, this article never happened, it’s author never jinxed anything, and you were never here.
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