Montenegro

Team introduction: The Montenegro national men’s football team is the national football team of Montenegro. It is managed by the Montenegro Football Association. Montenegro is one of the newest national teams in the world. After the disintegration of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006, Serbia still formed a team with Montenegro in the World Cup in Germany that year. In that World Cup, Serbia and Montenegro failed to advance to the knockout stages. The first official international match of the Montenegro national football team was the 2010 World Cup qualifying match. When the 2008 European Football Championship qualifiers were drawn in December 2005, Montenegro was not yet a member of UEFA and therefore was unable to participate in the competition. In the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, Montenegro was drawn into Group 8, with Italy, Bulgaria, Ireland, Cyprus and Georgia. After Montenegro became independent from Serbia and Montenegro, it had already participated in the qualifying rounds of the 2008 European Football Championship, but UEFA expressed its willingness to accept Montenegro to participate in the competition, as long as FIFA could approve the establishment of the Montenegro Football Association before September 2006. However, as the game began, the idea failed to materialize. In October 2006, Montenegro obtained provisional membership of UEFA and became a full member of UEFA at the UEFA meeting in January 2007. When Montenegro entered the FIFA rankings for the first time, it was ranked 199th (also the last place, due to having 0 points when it first entered the ranking system). On January 26, 2007, Montenegro officially became a member of UEFA. On March 24, 2007, Montenegro participated in its first international football friendly match at the Podgorica Stadium in its capital Podgorica. The opponent was the Hungarian team. Montenegro defeated the opponent 2-1. On May 31, 2007, Montenegro was admitted as FIFA's 208th member.