It’s a rough time for Greece, to say the least. The economy has utterly collapsed, and there’s been an unending and exhausting cycle of negotiation, heated rhetoric, concession, and eventual bailout. This week saw IMF negotiators stomp off from talks, citing intractable differences, despite the fact that Greece has a huge payment due to the organization at the end of the month. The country is at risk of default, yet again. To top it off, Greece’s soccer team, a source of pride for the country, lost to the Faroe Islands 2-1 yesterday.
This is the second time the Faroe Islands have bested Greece in the past seven months. The first time got its then coach sacked. This one leaves Greece without a single win in the qualification round of the 2016 European championships, and alone at the bottom of its group.
Greece is currently ranked 25th in the world by FIFA, and briefly broke into the top 10 teams in 2011. The Faroe Islands, a tiny archipelago somewhere between Norway and Iceland with a population of around 50,000, is ranked 102, behind powerhouses like Oman and Lithuania. The highest it’s ever been ranked is 92.
The week was awful for the country politically and economically, the country reported its 27th straight month of recession and spending cut induced deflation as EU leaders began to discuss the real possibility of default:
But this loss might sting worse:
The country looks more likely to patch things up with the IMF than it does to qualify for Euro 2016.