First Competitive Match
On 6 September 2008, Montenegro played its first ever World Cup qualifier. It was at the Podgorica City Stadium in Podgorica. As expected, Bulgaria took an early lead in the 11th minute with a goal from Stiliyan Petrov. Mirko Vučinić scored in the 61st minute to make the game 1–1. Stevan Jovetić took a penalty and made it 2–1 in the 82nd minute. As Montenegrin fans were about to celebrate a historical first competitive win, a last-minute equalizer from Blagoy Georgiev spoiled the party. In their next match on 10 September 2008, they achieved another notable result when they held The Republic of Ireland to a 0–0 draw. Another near upset came in a narrow 2–1 loss against Italy. Despite Alberto Aquilani's early strike, Vucinic quickly equalized 11 minutes later. Aquilani then scored again 10 minutes later. However, their second match against Italy in the two-game series ended 2–0 in favor of the World champions. And another disappointment came when the team could only draw 0–0 against Georgia and went on to draw 2–2 against Cyprus, having fought back after being 2 goals down. The fixture on 5 September 2009 was a shock when, after taking an early lead against Bulgaria in Sofia with Jovetic putting them 1–0 up, Bulgaria then scored 4 goals to win 4–1. Montenegro, now eliminated, drew their next game with Cyprus 1–1, who were also eliminated. Montenegro would finally register their first competitive win against Georgia, winning 2–1. They then managed a great performance to hold The Republic of Ireland to a 0–0 draw at Croke Park. They finished 5th in the group with 9 points, just below Cyprus due to GD. Though they failed to qualify for the World Cup, Montenegro had performed better than expected in their first competitive international matches. The next month, they reached one of their highest positions in the FIFA rankings, in 73rd place.
Read more about this topic: Montenegro National Football Team
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