Glory, Issue 11 – San Marino

Glory is a new football magazine with an ethos to put the ‘beautiful’ back in the beautiful game. We travel the world documenting alternative football cultures including the most remote, exotic and unusual destinations.

Glory are a team of designers, writers and photographers with a shared passion for football. We wanted to explore football beyond the Premier League, the Champions League and the World Cup, beyond Sky Sports and BT – beyond even the Football League and the major European club competitions.

Football is the world’s most popular sport, and there are countless nations where die-hard fans pack remote, windswept stadia or watch their national teams scrap for the honour of a place in the FIFA top 100. We look beyond the money, the glamour and the trophies to find the real Glory of football.

In this issue:

When we sent photographer Barley Nimmo to San Marino to document the national team in early 2024, it was almost 20 years since they recorded their one and only victory, in a friendly against fellow strugglers Liechtenstein. So imagine our surprise when the team secures their first-ever competitive victory in September later that year, and then followed it up with a Nations League promotion securing second victory just six weeks later (both against, you guessed it, Liechtenstein).

This issue is dedicated to the joys of football in a country where not losing – let alone winning – is often the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.