Faroe Islands vs Gibraltar

A battle of European minnows is about to ensue at Tórsvøllur in Torshavn as the Faroe Islands and Gibraltar lock horns in a low-profile 2026 World Cup qualifier. 

While fellow emerging football nations like Jordan and Uzbekistan have already secured their places at their first-ever FIFA World Cup next summer, the Faroe Islands’ hopes of joining them are quickly fading. Two defeats from their opening two World Cup qualifiers have set the tone for another challenging campaign, and a narrow 1-0 loss to Georgia in a recent friendly has only added to the gloom. With three straight defeats and only one goal to their name, confidence in the camp appears low as their dream of a historic major tournament debut grows increasingly distant. A lack of firepower saw the Faroes find the net just once in their last four internationals (L4), with each game producing a defeat by a single-goal margin. 

Their hosts’ underwhelming form can inspire hope around the Gibraltar camp as they seek their first points in Group L after three consecutive losses via an aggregate score of 14-1. The most recent defeat came against Croatia last week (0-7), nailing the continental minnows to the bottom of the group while extending their winless record in World Cup qualifiers to 23 games since their FIFA admission in 2016. Not only winless, they lost all those 23 matches and conceded an alarming average of 4.5 goals per game to compound matters! However, this could be their chance to buck this trend, considering they’ve only lost one of their four previous meetings with the Faroes (W1, D1).