customs officer, policeman or accountant… Meet the Gibraltar players who challenge the Blues

There are those who take time off to take a vacation, and those who do so to face the France team. Roy Chipolina, defender and captain of the Gibraltar selection, opposed to the Blues on Friday June 16, is more of the second category. “One day I will tell my grandchildren that I faced Kylian Mbappé“, smiles this amateur footballer, full-time customs officer, whom we meet in a starred hotel in southern Portugal where Gibraltar players have been staying for a week. Like him, many of his teammates are amateurs.

The heavy air in Faro, a town close to the Algarve stadium where this match will be played due to a lack of standard infrastructure in Gibraltar, encourages the hotel’s tourists to bask by the pool. Roy Chipolina, he has just returned from training with his teammates. Forties since January, the defender is particularly sharp. “I’ve been taking great care of myself for ten years.”assures the captain of the selection.

Ten years ago, in May 2013, Gibraltarian football took a leap forward. After years of legal battle and several rejections, the British territory then obtains from UEFA that it opens its doors to it. Three years later, it is the turn of Fifa. International football makes its appearance on the Rock of 30,000 inhabitants. Roy Chipolina, who has been playing non-official matches with the Gibraltar team since he was 17, saw his international career kick off when he entered his thirties.

A security guard marking Mbappé

Since then, the Llanitos – nickname of the national team which corresponds to the dialect, a mixture of English and Spanish, spoken in Gibraltar – participate in the campaigns for the qualifications for the Euros, the World Cup and the Nations League . They sometimes face big teams there, despite more than limited means. “I remember before the game in Germany [défaite 4-0 en novembre 2014] be in the hallway before entering the lawn. I look behind me and see four teammates, who are kids who lived in the same housing estate in Gibraltar. And opposite, world champions that we were going to have to face in front of 50,000 people. I wondered what we were doing there”still laughs today Roy Chipolina.

Among the players of the selection, there is therefore the captain, customs officer. His cousin, Joseph Chipolina, left-back, is a prison guard. Defender Aymen Mouelhi is a security guard, midfielder Jamie Coombes is an accountant, while right-back Ethan Jolley is a shipping agent. Lee Casciaro, striker and eldest of the selection with his 41 years, is a policeman. All must reconcile international football matches for which they take time off, and full-time work in Gibraltar.

Others just play football. This is the case of Dayle Coleing, 26, who joins the conversation with his captain. A firm handshake, the hallmark of a goalkeeper. The one who will keep the cages of Gibraltar, this Friday, launches: “I had graduated to become a PE teacher but realized that I had the opportunity to focus solely on football. I will become a teacher one day, but for now I am a footballer.“

“During qualifying, we are under water”

He, like other younger players in the Gibraltar national team, took the chance after joining UEFA to play football full time. With the Lincoln Red Imps, the most successful club in the Rock where eight players from the current selection, including Roy Chipolina, play, the goalkeeper discovered the European Cup and the highest level. Enough to gain experience and aim higher. In 2020, Dayle Coleing tried the experience in the Northern Irish championship, before returning to Gibraltar.

In this sense, the goalkeeper serves as a role model for other young emerging players. This is the case of Tjay De Barr, the star of this team, designated without hesitation by Roy Chipolina and Dayle Coleing. The 23-year-old striker plays for Wycombe, in the English third division. “He is our best player and our best scorer“, advances the goalkeeper, before ironizing on the fact that his captain has scored more goals in selection than De Barr (3 goals).

With five goals, Roy Chipolina is indeed the top scorer in the history of Gibraltar. The Llanitos have scored and won little since their emergence on the international scene in 2013 (8 wins and 30 goals scored in 76 official matches). The creation of the League of Nations, in 2018, allowed them to breathe and win their group in the second edition, ahead of Liechtenstein and San Marino.

“I prefer to play in the League of Nations, that’s where we express ourselves best because those are more our standards. When we play the qualifications, we are under water“, admits Dayle Coleing. To make matters worse, the Llanitos cannot take advantage of their audience: after several years of playing on the Rock, the selection has been forced, since the beginning of 2023, to play its home matches in Faro, Portugal. , as the stadium in Gibraltar is undergoing renovation.

The border with Spain, a daily ordeal

“There are few infrastructures in Gib’. On a daily basis, we have to go to Spain to train. We queue for an hour and a half a day to cross the border in one direction and the other. It’s exhausting”, recognizes Roy Chipolina, who must reconcile these constraints with his full-time job. At the Algarve stadium, only 3,000 supporters are expected to be present in the stands. “They will mainly be there to see Mbappé”admits with a smile the captain, who says to himself “motivated, nervous and intimidated at the same time” before this meeting against the vice-world champions.

Under what conditions will his team have succeeded in his match? “It’s hard to measure the success on our side. The France team, its scale, is whether or not to win the World Cup“, describes the forties. “For us it is different. Our success can be to score a goal, or to take only three or four instead of six or seven. We develop in small steps.“

Beside him, Dayle Coleing nods. In 2021, the goalkeeper had a great performance against Norway, despite a 3-0 defeat, preventing Erling Haaland from scoring. Can he achieve the same performance against the Blues?

“Everyone was saying at the time that Haaland was going to score six goals, so that was a source of motivation. But every game is different.”, underlines the goalkeeper who, despite his semi-pro status, masters the language of wood of the greatest. Her captain, nearly fifteen years her senior, continues to have stars in her eyes. Roy Chipolina concludes, for the umpteenth time, with the same expression that summarizes the adventure of the Llanitos since 2013: “It’s surreal everything we live.”