While the World Cup, the Euros, the African Cup of Nations, and many more competitions can be used to show off the best national teams in the world, there aren't many competitions that include the worst teams in them, meaning that one of the only ways to figure out who the worst teams are is through the FIFA World Ranking, which ranks all 211 FIFA recognized national teams in the world. So here are the 10 worst teams on that list.
10. Aruba
Aruba, who are currently ranked 202nd on the FIFA World Rankings have not qualified for any major tournament and in fact, their only trophy was won in 2012 when Aruba won the ABCS Tournament, a tournament just between Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and Suriname. 3 years after winning that trophy was when Aruba hit their high point on the world rankings, reaching 112th, better than they have ever reached.
9. Bahamas
The Bahamas have never been good at soccer, as shown by their highest FIFA World Ranking being 138th in 2006. Despite losing most of their games, the Bahamas do have one accomplishment, and that is reaching the Pan American games (A soccer tournament between teams from North, Central, and South America that has been turned into an Under 23 competition since 1999) in 1971, despite crashing out in the group stage.
8. Somalia
There isn’t much to say about the Somali national team, who have only made it so high as 158 on the FIFA World Rankings and have never qualified for the World Cup, olympic soccer, or the Africa Cup of Nations. Somalia are in one of their worst years ever for soccer, because their current ranking of 204th is the worst rank the team has ever got in their 65 year history.
7. Guam
Guam, while currently being ranked below them, have actually played historically better than Somalia, with Guam’s highest ever rating being 146, 12 better than Somalia. Guam have also made it to a big competition before, although not the size or scale of the more famous competitions, the Pacific Games are what Guam is best at, they have qualified for 5 out of the 15 editions of the Pacific Games (which has 11 teams out of a total of 18 teams eligible to qualify) and despite never getting out of the group stage Guam was chosen to host the games in 1975.
6. Turks and Caicos
Turks and Caicos soccer has not had an easy time since joining FIFA in 1998, as proven by the fact that in the time between 1998 and 2023 Turks and Caicos have not qualified for any major tournament, also in that time they have played 42 matches, winning 9 of them, drawing 2, and losing 31, and worst of all, in 2018, the team was the worst ranked team in the world for a couple of months.
5. Sri Lanka
Despite being at an all time low of 207th on the FIFA World Rankings, Sri Lanka have played some good soccer in the past, getting all the way up to the 122nd spot in the 1990’s. Sri Lanka have historically played very well in the South Asian Football Federation Championship (SAFF Championship) which is a competition contested every 2-3 years between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka won the SAFF Championship in 1995, were runners up in 1993 and got out in the semi finals in 1997, 2009, and 2015.
4. US Virgin Islands
The US Virgin Islands are one of the teams on this list that it currently at the lowest they have ever been, but unlike some of those other teams, the US Virgin Islands have never made it very high in the FIFA World Rankings, with their best being 149th, which isn’t very good but it is a long way from their 2023 ranking of 208th. This team does not have much of a scoring threat when facing other countries in official qualification matches, as their 2 all time top scorers in matches (not including friendlies) each only have 3 goals for their country.
3. British Virgin Islands
The British Virgin Islands soccer team, despite playing for 38 years have not accomplished much other than reaching the 160th on the world rankings in 2000, and the years since have been spent by the team losing terribly in friendlies, with the worst game of all coming in 2010 when the British Virgin Islands lost 17-0 to the Dominican Republic.
2. Anguilla
Anguilla, a CONCACAF team, are the second worst international team in the world, a position they have held since 2019, this is because of the lackluster performances they have put up while playing against opponents in qualification games, meaning that they are unable to qualify for any continental or international tournaments. Another reason Anguilla are ranked so low is because of their all time record, which consists of 83 games with 8 wins, 8 draws, and 67 losses, which means that Anguilla lose an embarrassing 80.7% of their games.
1. San Marino
The worst international team by far is the only European team on this list, which is the tiny country of San Marino, who have only ever won 1 official game (19 years ago), and are most likely the only team in the world to have a wikipedia section about their “games not lost” (Which only consists of 9 games). San Marino’s problem isn’t that they are a team who don’t play a lot of matches, their total of 194 games is impressive, they are just a team that loses almost every game. With one win, coming against Liechtenstein in 2004, 8 ties and a grand total of 185 losses, San Marino have a win rate of .52% and a total goal differential of -770 (798 goals against and only 28 goals scored by San Marino in 194 games.)