Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Occitania national football team

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Nickname(s)
  
La Seleccion

Most caps
  
Boris Massaré (30)

Location
  
Occitania

Head coach
  
Didier Amiel

Appearances
  
(first in 2006)

Occitania national football team uploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthumb66d

Top scorer
  
Mickael Bertini (12). Guillaume Lafuente (11), Boris Massaré (9)

Best result
  
3rd in 2006, 3rd in 2010, 2nd in 2016

Confederation
  
Confederation of Independent Football Associations

The Occitania national football team is the football team of Occitania, which is the name given to areas of southern France, westernmost Italy and a small valley in northern Spain where the Occitan language is spoken. It is controlled by the Associacion Occitania de Fotbol. As Occitania is not a recognised state it is neither a member of FIFA nor UEFA, and the team therefore is not eligible to enter either the World Cup or European Championship. They are members of the New Federations Board, and hosted the inaugural VIVA World Cup in November 2006 where they finished 3rd.

Since the Occitania team was established in 2004 they have played numerous friendly matches against sides such as Chechnya and Monaco as well as competing in 4 VIVA World Cup tournaments. In 2009 they finished 6th after their 5th-place match victory over Gozo was annulled, and a year later they completed their best-ever VIVA World Cup performance when they defeated Two Sicilies 2-0 to take 3rd-place. The Occitans were narrowly knocked out by hosts Iraqi Kurdistan national football team in the group stages of the 2012 VIVA World Cup, before eventually finished 5th.

They also participated in the ConIFA World Football Cup 2014 in Ostersund, city of Lapland in Sweden where they were unbeaten during the whole competition but losing in quarter finals on penalty against Arameans Suryoye football team. They finished at 7th place after beating Abkhazia national football team who won the ConIFA World Football Cup 2016 in Abkhazia.

Occitania also play in the Europeada, which is organised by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN). In the Europeada 2008 Occitania reached the quarter finals, being eliminated by eventual tournament winner South Tyrol. The Occitans again reached the quarter finals in the 2012 tournament and finished at 5th place. They finally reached the final in the 2016 tournament against South Tyrol again and finished 2nd out of 24 teams losing after extra time in the final.

Current squad

Squad for the 2014 ConIFA World Football Cup: link here

References

Occitania national football team Wikipedia