A Canadian-American becomes Head of State of An Ancient Catholic Sovereign-Entity
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The Coppa di Calcio Vaticana (The Vatican Soccer Cup) held its Final on the 26th of February between the Archivio Calcio and Dirseco, two teams representing employees of the Vatican Archives and the economic services in the small country respectively.
Unlike its glorious past, association football is still recovering from COVID-19 in the city-state and thus a non-traditional 5 on 5 version resembling futsal took shape instead of the 11 on 11 you see with AS Roma and SS Lazio in Serie A.
Nevertheless, the small city-state had to keep their most popular sport alive and to no surprise, the most successful side, Dirseco, found itself back in the Final!
But, Archivio Calcio had been in better form over the past two seasons. In the championship playoffs last June, Archivio Calcio made it to the final losing to Santos (supermarket and distributors team).
Thus, Archivio Calcio was the most determined side of the night, dominating 4-1.
A unique American flair also filled the air for the Final took place at Campo Cardinale F Spellman (Cardinal F. Spellman Field), with a nice logo of the Knights of Columbus abiding the entrance to which the former Archbishop of New York and auxillary bishop in Boston was very involved in.
Keeping its East Coast roots, lacrosse goals often sit on the side of the larger complex of the Cavaliere di Colombo Campo Pio XI, a sports complex the Connecticut-based knights have run since Pope Benedict XV asked them to do over 100 years ago.
Since then, other Knights of Columbus complexes have been built including Campo Pio XII. These sports complexes service the wider Roman community and especially the sports programs of the Vatican City including national teams across multiple sports and inter-university and club competitions.
In terms of the match itself, the Vatican Cup is notable for being an early trophy on the European calendar. Most nations' 2024-2025 season will see their equivalent champion crowned in April or May, thus placing Archivio Calcio among the first of European domestic cup champions for the current season.
This year's Cup Final was more significant publicly for the involvement of social media which highlighted the accomplishments of each club throughout the competition, and allowed the wider European soccer community to embrace Archivio once they won it all.
Archivio Calcio will look to make it a domestic double later this season in the Campionato della Città del Vaticano (Vatican City Championship) competition that will end in May or June.
Cole Kinder is a recent graduate of UCLA in political science with a focus on international relations. He has written one book, Foreign Policy in 4 Hours, Afghanistan 2021, and has written many articles on various websites such as Crisis Magazine. Cole Kinder specializes in international relations, domestic politics, religious studies (Catholicism), Slavic studies, sports, as well as geography.
