Meet international football's newest team

It turns out that watching the World Cup of Darts gives you a haka from the New Zealand team, upset after upset after upset on Saturday night, and an emotional journey to the final for Belgium's Huybrechts brothers. However, one thing that this tournament also gives you is a rare opportunity to watch Gibraltar compete in a televised international sports competition.

Dylan Duo and Dyson Parody once again teamed up to represent the British overseas territory, and they got off to a blistering start in their first match against Poland. The pairing couldn't keep it up though, and registered two defeats in their group.

Gibraltar does have international representation in other sports, such as basketball and cricket, but to have a presence in global football would mean more to them than anything else.

It has been a long and difficult journey for the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) to become members of UEFA. The story is well-documented elsewhere on the internet, but basically it starts when the GFA applied to join UEFA in the late nineties. Politics got in the way, and UEFA changed its rules so that only United Nations members could join (existing members including England and the Faroe Islands were protected from this). The GFA appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and they ruled that UEFA must consider the GFA for membership under the laws in force at the time of their initial application. So, in 2006, UEFA gave Gibraltar provisional membership. While Montenegro gained full UEFA membership in 2007, at the same Congress Gibraltar was overwhelmingly rejected. Only England, Scotland and Wales voted in their favour. The GFA went back to CAS, and got the same ruling as they did before. Now the process is repeating itself, as Gibraltar were again given provisional membership in 2012. The vote on full membership will take place in May this year.

I followed the situation avidly in 2006 and 2007, eager to see if there was going to be a new football team propping up qualification groups of the future, à la Andorra and San Marino. Almost every day I'd be frantically typing my searches into Google, desperate to find out any tiny new piece of information. Sometimes this even included putting Spanish articles through the translator. I also attended a seminar given by an experienced 'sports mediator' from CAS, and I asked him about it. As it happened, he was actually working on the case, and told me to "watch this space".

I sense that the current period of provisional membership is a little different, though. For a start, UEFA has included Gibraltar in its draws for youth and futsal qualifying groups. It was engineered so that Gibraltar could not be in the same group as Spain, in the same way that we have seen recently with the prevention of groups involving both Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Georgia and Russia.

Futsal hasn't found its way into the hearts of people here yet, but elsewhere it is a popular five-a-side version of football played on a hard court. And it was a hard court in the south of France where a bit of history was made.

If you were preoccupied with Bradford City reaching the League Cup final, ball boys being kicked, and a non-League team knocking a Premier League side out of the FA Cup, then you'll be forgiven for not noticing the UEFA Futsal Euro 2014 preliminary round qualifiers taking place. It was these which saw a Gibraltarian side travel to Nice to play in their long-awaited first ever UEFA-sanctioned matches. Gibraltar might be excluded from the youth groups which they were drawn into because they take place after the GFA's application could be rejected in May. Crucially, however, the futsal qualifiers took place before that decision, allowing the team to get out there and play.

The players have been used to the eleven-a-side game, and a look at the teamsheet shows a mix of Spanish and British-sounding names. The very first match, interestingly enough, is against Montenegro who, for the time being, are still UEFA's newest members after they were admitted when Gibraltar was not. That aside, and it is a bit of a wake-up call as Montenegro run out 10-2 winners. I, like many over in Gibraltar, follow the text commentary on the UEFA website as the action unfolds. Although not an ideal start with double figures in the concession department, the important thing was that they scored in their first match. Joseph Chipolina got that historic first goal.

An improved showing in their next match saw them only lose 6-2 to their French hosts. I'm no futsal expert, but it looks to me as if they need to work on their defending a bit.

Having already been eliminated, and it left for France and Montenegro to contest for the qualification spot, it was up to Gibraltar to give it all they had in their last match, for this was their big chance to register a win. San Marino stood in their way.

The Sammarinese haven't had the easiest time of it in international futsal. Despite being around for a lot longer than Gibraltar, they were also viewing this match as an opportunity for a first ever victory. Perhaps that showed, as by half time San Marino were 5-2 up, with Matteo Michelotti netting a hat-trick.

Just as it looked like it was going to be an opportunity missed for Gibraltar, they came out determined in the second half, and set about making up the deficit. A goal fourteen seconds after the break, another from Chipolina to make his mark again, and then Liam Clarke completed a hat-trick of his own to draw the scores level. It was to be a happy ending for their Nice adventure, with two further unanswered goals making the final score 7-5 to Gibraltar.

Montenegro go on to the next phase of qualification after topping the group by drawing with France. Gibraltar go away with a creditable third place that should be celebrated. The bearable wait for success goes on for San Marino.

And so, despite not being part of any confederation, or even playing on a grass pitch, I make it that Gibraltar is now international football's newest team.

The future of futsal in Gibraltar is unclear. A summer league has been mooted. An interesting idea would be for them to focus on futsal and become specialists at it (I think that Azerbaijan have done that to an extent with their beach soccer team, and have achieved some decent results). It all depends if UEFA admit them. This is not just an opportunity for regular international football, but there would also be improvements in coaching and facilities.

UEFA has a decision to make in May. There will be politics. Not everyone will vote for the GFA. There may be some representatives voting who have never even heard of Gibraltar before this. But will they get in? In 2007 I was pretty sure that they would, and I was left surprised with the voting, so I wouldn't be so sure with my prediction. This time, however, UEFA may be more resigned to the fact that Gibraltar's membership seems inevitable, as indicated by president Michel Platini. It's true that the GFA can keep coming back to knock on the door because the key thing is that they have CAS on their side, which UEFA cannot ignore.