Let’s meet our first European opponent: Virtus AC 1964

The draw for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League has paired us with the champions of San Marino, and below we bring you some basic information and interesting facts about our first European opponent, as well as the small country we’ll be visiting for only the second time in our history.

To recall, our first visit to San Marino was back in 2010 in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League, when we faced SP Tre Penne (4:1, 9:2).

Virtus Associazione Calcio 1964, as the club is officially known, hails from Acquaviva, one of the nine municipalities of this small European country. Since the 1994/1995 season, Virtus has been a regular participant in San Marino’s top football division, but the most successful chapters in the club’s history have been written in recent seasons. In 2022/2023, Virtus won its first San Marino Cup, followed by a historic first league title the following season, and in the most recent campaign, the club completed a domestic treble—winning the league, the cup, and the super cup.

Virtus has only one appearance in European competition, which it earned after winning the national title last year. In their international debut, they faced Romanian champions FCSB in the first qualifying round of the Champions League (1:7, 0:4). However, they left a much better impression in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Europa Conference League against Estonian champions Flora (0:0, 2:5), who advanced only after extra time.

Although it’s not their home ground, Virtus will host us at the San Marino Stadium in Serravalle, the largest stadium in the country, with a capacity of just under 5,000 seats. This stadium hosts all European matches played by clubs from San Marino, meaning this will be our second visit there—having previously played against Tre Penne at the same venue fifteen years ago.

The team has been led for six years by head coach Luigi Bizzotto, who previously managed La Fiorita—winning the league title with them in 2017—and later Tre Penne. On the way to securing their latest title, which Virtus won with a four-point lead over La Fiorita, Bizzotto used a total of 25 players. The most consistent performer was 39-year-old midfielder Ivan Buonocunto, who also finished as the team’s top scorer with 11 goals. Interestingly, eight of the players who featured during the season were over the age of 35. In the most recent international break, the club had just one player called up for national duty—central defender Alessandro Golinucci—who played the full 90 minutes in both matches against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Austria.

San Marino’s champions made their Champions League qualifying debut in 2007, but to this day, no champion from the country has managed to pull off an upset and get past the first hurdle. Across 30 matches—including six seasons in which they competed in the preliminary round played as a single match—San Marino’s clubs have recorded just one victory. The closest anyone came to advancing was Tre Fiori in 2009, who were eliminated on penalties by Andorran champions UE Sant Julià after two draws.

In 2004, Željezničar eliminated Pennarossa at the start of the UEFA Cup qualifiers (5:1, 4:0), and following our encounters with Tre Penne (4:1, 9:2) in the 2010/2011 season, clubs from San Marino visited Bosnia and Herzegovina two more times. First, it was Libertas in 2013, who faced Sarajevo in the UEFA Europa League qualifiers (1:0, 2:1), and then once again Tre Penne, who played against Tuzla City in 2022 (0:2, 0:6) at the beginning of the UEFA Europa Conference League qualifiers.

The Republic of San Marino is a small country entirely surrounded by Italian territory. In terms of area, it is the third smallest country in Europe—larger only than Vatican City and the Principality of Monaco. It covers just 60.57 square kilometers, with the distance between its northernmost and southernmost borders measuring only 12 kilometers as the crow flies. It is bordered by the Italian regions of Emilia-Romagna and Marche, with the nearest major city being Rimini, located on the Adriatic coast just 15 kilometers away. San Marino has a population of around 35,000 people.