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The team that doesn't play qualifiers: inside Vatican football and its jerseys

07 de August de 2026 · 11′ de leitura· Garrincha Shirts

The team that doesn't play qualifiers: inside Vatican football and its jerseys

Not in the FIFA rankings. Doesn’t play qualifiers. Can’t qualify for a World Cup. Its players don’t even need to hold Vatican citizenship.

And yet, the smallest independent state on the planet has a men’s national team, a women’s team, an official jersey, an anthem before kickoff, and a more active recent history of international matches than most people realize. In June 2026, for example, the men’s team beat KSV Johannisthal, an amateur club from Berlin, 5–1, in Rome, complete with anthems and flags before kickoff. It was the third chapter of a small, improbable rivalry between the Vatican and Berlin — and that’s just the latest edge of a story worth telling in full.

So does the Vatican actually have a national team?

Short answer: yes — but not like Brazil, Argentina, or Italy.

The organization responsible for local football calls itself the Rappresentativa di Calcio dei Dipendenti Vaticani — the football team of Vatican employees. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has officially described it as “Rappresentativa di Calcio dei Dipendenti Vaticani (la Nazionale)”, and FIFA, in a 2020 feature, used the term national team for both the men’s and women’s sides. The catch: the state isn’t a FIFA member, and players are drawn from the community of Vatican employees — and, historically, their relatives too.

A football history older than you’d think

The first officially recorded match dates to April 13, 1946: a friendly between administrative employees and Governatorato staff, whose score is unknown. 1947 brought the first real tournament, a four-team event whose final — between the Pontifical Villas and the Fabbrica di San Pietro — had to be stopped after a fight broke out between players.

It wasn’t until 1972 that Vatican football got a permanent structure: Sergio Valci, backed by Cardinal Sergio Guerri, organized the first championship, named the Coppa dell’Amicizia, contested by seven teams. The Coppa Vaticana followed in 1985, and the Supercoppa in 2007. Teams represent different departments: the Vatican Museums, the Gendarmerie, the Apostolic Archive, the Swiss Guard, Vatican Radio, the Governatorato, the Pharmacy, the Printing Office, the Bambino Gesù Hospital, and more.

2018–2019: the women’s team is born

In 2018, a women’s team was formed with Vatican employees. Its public debut came on May 26, 2019, against AS Roma’s women’s side at Campo Pio XI — a 10–0 loss that said more about the gap between a newly formed team and a professional Italian first-division club than about the project’s significance.

Weeks later, a friendly scheduled in Vienna against FC Mariahilf never happened: during the Vatican anthem, Austrian players lifted their shirts to reveal messages supporting the legalization of abortion, and the match was called off before kickoff.

📷 Photos and context on the women’s team — FIFA feature

2020–2021: when the jersey becomes the story

Covid-19 brought most Vatican sporting activity to a halt. But it was during the pandemic that the idea took shape that would redefine the Vatican jersey: one of Sport in Vaticano’s directors had the idea of selling, for the first time, the official jersey, training jacket, backpack, and cap of the Rappresentativa to the public. Half the proceeds would go to Pope Francis’s charitable works, and the other half would fund the team’s own participation in charity events.

The “No. 1 Francesco” jersey

On June 23, 2021, during an audience, Pope Francis received the first unit of the personalized jersey, with the number 1 and the name “Francesco” on the back. In the months that followed, personalized versions were also given to cardinals, bishops, and heads of dicasteries as a thank-you for supporting the project.

July 30, 2021: the jersey hits the Vatican Museums shops

Sport in Vaticano describes the date as historic: for the first time, the official jersey went on sale directly to the public, in the Vatican Museums shops and the Governatorato’s clothing store. That piece, along with the 50th-anniversary edition, is still listed today in the official Vatican Museums store.

📷 Official photo archive — Sport in Vaticano

November 2021: Fratelli Tutti is born

Later in 2021, a second team emerged, named after Francis’s encyclical on universal fraternity: Fratelli Tutti, the “Pope’s team.” It brought together Swiss Guards, Vatican employees and their children, priests from the Secretariat of State and the Curia, members of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, three young migrants, and an athlete with Down syndrome linked to Special Olympics — a lineup built to face the World Rom Organization in Formello, at Lazio’s training ground.

The jersey, supplied by Erreà, was gold-yellow with white shoulders and sleeves, featuring the papal coat of arms and the words “Fratelli Tutti.” Fratelli Tutti never replaced the official Rappresentativa — it’s a special team, assembled for events with a social purpose.

2022: a match for peace, the 50th anniversary — and a chat about UEFA

On March 24, 2022, Sport in Vaticano faced the Rappresentativa of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital in what was called the Partita della Pace (“Peace Match”), at Campo Pio XI. The initiative grew out of a banner drawn by hospitalized children, as a gesture against the war in Ukraine — carried onto the pitch by the hospital’s own nurses and doctors, alongside Sport in Vaticano’s players. The Vatican won, but, according to the official account, the score took a back seat to the symbolism of the gesture.

In May, the association turned 50, marked by a commemorative jersey officially unveiled at FIGC headquarters in Rome. During the celebrations, a little-known detail surfaced: Pope Francis reportedly discussed a possible Vatican bid to join UEFA with UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin himself, during a visit Čeferin paid to the Vatican ahead of the Euro 2020 final (played in 2021). No formal follow-up is known to have occurred.

📷 Official FIGC gallery — the 50th-anniversary jersey

2023: charity matches — and the start of the “Vatikan Cup” with Berlin

In May, a Fratelli Tutti lineup faced Santa Devota, a team of friends and family linked to Prince Albert II of Monaco, winning 3–0. Shortly after, a Fratelli Tutti side with 18 priests and seminarians played the Variétés Club de France at the Stadio dei Marmi, an event that brought together former French players like Arsène Wenger, Christian Karembeu, and Robert Pirès — with “Fratelli Tutti” printed where a sponsor’s logo would normally go.

But the most important episode for the recent rivalry came on June 17, 2023, in Rome: that’s when what the German press dubbed the “Vatikan Cup” began — a series of friendlies with KSV Johannisthal, an ecumenical amateur club from Berlin founded 40 years ago in what was then East Berlin. In the first leg:

  • 🇻🇦 Vatican 7–1 KSV Johannisthal 🇩🇪 (men)
  • 🇻🇦 Vatican 1–3 Pichanga FC 🇩🇪 (women — the German side won; it was treated as the women’s team’s first international match in this exchange format)

February 2024: football with refugees

A Fratelli Tutti team — Vatican employees, priests, and seminarians — played Rinascita Refugees, a project made up mostly of African migrants and refugees. The Vatican team’s captain was a person supported by Caritas Rome, and official communications stressed the idea of playing “with”, not simply “against,” the opponent.

October 2024: the rematch in Berlin

On October 12, 2024, at the Käthe-Tucholla-Stadion in Berlin, the return leg of the Vatikan Cup took place — with flags and anthems like a “real” international friendly:

  • 🇩🇪 KSV Johannisthal 3–2 Vatican 🇻🇦 (men), in front of roughly 200 spectators, refereed by Berlin’s works senator, Christian Gaebler
  • 🇻🇦 Vatican 0–3 KSV/Bonn-Endenich selection 🇩🇪 (women, since KSV has no women’s side of its own — players from FV Bonn-Endenich 08 wore the host club’s jersey). It was the women’s team’s first match outside Italy, since the 2019 Vienna friendly never got underway.

For the Vatican, it was the only “international match” on the 2024 calendar.

📷 Photos from the Berlin match — Kicker

April–May 2025: the death of Pope Francis and the election of Leo XIV

On April 21, 2025, Easter Monday, Pope Francis died at age 88, at Casa Santa Marta. In the conclave that followed, on May 8, 2025, cardinals elected American cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV — the first pope from the United States in history.

This is an unavoidable turning point in this story: up until then, the Rappresentativa’s jersey, the “No. 1 jersey,” Fratelli Tutti, and much of the charity-and-diplomacy language around Vatican football had been personally tied to Francis. From May 2025 on, that role passes to Leo XIV — who, unlike his predecessor (an avowed fan of Buenos Aires’s San Lorenzo), is more associated with tennis, but quickly showed an interest in sport in general, including the football he played as a seminarian in Peru.

June 2025: the Jubilee of Sport and Cafu’s blessing

2025 was already, even before Francis’s death, a Jubilee year — the Holy Year the Catholic Church celebrates every 25 years, which brought millions of pilgrims to Rome under the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” Within that calendar came the Jubilee of Sport (or Jubilee of Athletes), held on June 14–15, 2025, already under Leo XIV, bringing together professional and amateur athletes in Rome.

One of the event’s most-shared moments: on June 11, 2025, during a general audience, Brazilian former right-back Cafu, captain of Brazil’s 2002 World Cup-winning side, gave Pope Leo XIV a signed Brazil national team jersey — a gesture fans linked, on social media, to Brazil’s recently secured spot at the 2026 World Cup. Leo XIV also received two books from writer Mariah Morais on the occasion. In his Jubilee of Sport homily, the pope described sport as “a path to building peace, because it is a school of respect and loyalty.”

2025–2026: a strong domestic league, a rare but still-alive national team

Meanwhile, Vatican domestic football stayed busy: in 2025, Archivio won the Coppa Vaticana 4–1 over Dirseco, and March 2026 saw another edition of the Campionato Vaticano kick off, with eight teams. The official site also spotlighted, in 2025, the women’s team, telling the story of Sister Livia, a player who combines consecrated life and football.

In June 2026, the Vatican dedicated its monthly prayer intention to the “values of sport,” on the eve of the World Cup — and it was in that context that the third chapter of the Vatikan Cup unfolded.

June 5, 2026 — the third meeting with Berlin

At the Centro Sportivo Pio XI in Rome, with a view of St. Peter’s dome:

  • 🇻🇦 Vatican 5–1 KSV Johannisthal 🇩🇪 (men) — two 40-minute halves; the Vatican went up 2–0, conceded one, and closed it out 5–1.
  • 🇻🇦 Vatican 1–9 SV Askania Coepenick 🇩🇪 (women) — played 9-a-side because of pitch size constraints; 7–0 at halftime, 9–1 at the final whistle.

It was the third meeting between the Berlin and Vatican teams since first contact in 2022.

📷 Official match photos — Vatican News (German)

The Vatican–Berlin rivalry, aggregated

Year Venue Men’s result Women’s result
2023 Rome Vatican 7–1 KSV Johannisthal Vatican 1–3 Pichanga FC
2024 Berlin KSV Johannisthal 3–2 Vatican Vatican 0–3 KSV/Bonn-Endenich selection
2026 Rome Vatican 5–1 KSV Johannisthal Vatican 1–9 SV Askania Coepenick

The jerseys: why they’re worth collecting

Unlike traditional national teams, the Vatican has never had a broad commercial line, refreshed yearly and distributed worldwide. The jersey went from Diadora, to Sportika SA, to Joma in 2021 — the very year the kit went on public sale for the first time, inside the Vatican Museums. Fratelli Tutti had its own supplier, Erreà. And, more recently, the Jubilee 2025/26 identity has started showing up on specific pieces, tied to a Holy Year that spanned two pontificates.

It’s exactly that scarcity — the lack of an “annual line” the way a FIFA nation has — that turns each of these jerseys into a collector’s item: the “No. 1 Francesco” jersey, the 50th-anniversary edition, the Erreà-made Fratelli Tutti kit, the Jubilee pieces. Each one carries a specific slice of this recent history — pandemic, charity, mourning, papal succession, inclusion — that’s unlikely to repeat itself.

That’s the niche Garrincha Shirts serves: we sell Vatican football jerseys, and jerseys from other national teams and clubs, outside the traditional retail circuit. Our current catalog, for instance, includes pieces tied to exactly this recent chapter:

If this story caught your interest — from the 2019 women’s team debut to the third Vatikan Cup in 2026, by way of the jersey Pope Francis himself wore, and the transition to Pope Leo XIV — you can browse the full catalog at garrinchashirts.com.

Why not FIFA, why not UEFA

The Vatican is one of the few fully recognized sovereign states whose national team isn’t a FIFA member — in the company of states like Monaco, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands. In 2014, the association’s then-president, Domenico Ruggiero, summed up the mindset: he preferred to keep the team amateur, because joining FIFA “at that level, will be like a business.” The current team is coached by Italian Massimiliano Strapetti. Not even the 2022 conversation between Pope Francis and UEFA’s president changed that picture — Vatican football remains, by choice, outside the international competitive circuit.

Sources and photo galleries

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