The Other Final

Two teams sat at the very bottom of the FIFA rankings. One was Bhutan and the other was Montserrat. The idea of putting them against each other came out of the Netherlands. The men behind it worked at an advertising agency there. The Dutch side had failed to qualify for that year’s World Cup. The match was played on the thirtieth of June 2002. The World Cup final was played on the same day. The ground was in Thimphu, the Bhutanese capital. A Dutch coach was sent out weeks earlier to prepare the home team. Bhutan won four nil. It was the country’s first ever victory. It was also the first time they had kept a clean sheet. The documentary spends more time on the preparation than on the match. The aim was to show the side of football that sits outside elite competition. Matthijs de Jongh appears in the seventy eight minute documentary, a Dutch production Johan Kramer finished in 2003.