The Vatican City national football team () is the football team that represents Vatican City under the control of the Vatican Amateur Sports Association, headquartered in the Vatican's Cortile di San Damaso. The Vatican City football association was founded in 1972. Its current president is Domenico Ruggerio. Gianfranco Guadagnoli, an Italian, is the current head coach. The team played its first match in 1985, a 3–0 victory against a representative of Austrian journalists. In 2018, the Vatican also created a women's representative team. Overview In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II established a Vatican sports department with the aim of "reinvigorating the tradition (of sport) within the Christian community". In 2006, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone suggested that the Vatican could field a team of men from Catholic seminaries. About the prospect, the cardinal stated, "If we just take the Brazilian students from our Pontifical universities we could have a magnificent squad." The cardinal also noted that in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, there were 42 players in the final round who attended Salesian training centres worldwide. For example, Marcelino, Spanish hero of the 1964 European Nations' Cup, was a former seminarian. It was Bertone's proposal that the Vatican's players, even if accepted by UEFA, would be drawn from the population within the Catholic Church worldwide, not just citizens of Vatican City. He was unclear at the time whether the Vatican would grant these players Vatican citizenship to make this possible. With the smallest population of any nation, approximately 900, it is difficult to form a squad. The Vatican City squad consists entirely of employees of the Vatican: police officers, postal workers, government officials and members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, the Vatican's de facto army, charged with protecting the pope. Since most Vatican citizens are members of the Swiss Guard, they cannot be amassed in large numbers for a long time. Therefore, the national team has played only a few rare international matches, often drawing a fair amount of interested press. When Vatican City played its first match in 2002, only one player, Marcello Rosati, had a Vatican passport. In 2010, Vatican City was invited to participate in the Viva World Cup by the N.F.-Board and were expected to participate but were unable to do so because they could not assemble a 15-man roster. In total, Vatican City have played only four full international matches against