Malta used to host a three or four team football tournament every February, and later every two years. In the early years club teams were invited and the first two winners were Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart. The third edition was won by the East German Olympic team. I'm not sure what the German connection was. There were Scandinavian years with Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark. And then it seemed to go predominantly Eastern European: Slovenia, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia were repeat visitors with even Russia playing once.
In 2000, the Malta FA must have been spoilt for choice, or had no idea who to invite. So they opened the Fifa book of football playing countries, started with the A's and got three acceptances from Albania, Andorra and Azerbaijan. I remember the 3-0 win against Azerbaijan. It was a rarity to witness such a comprehensive Maltese win.
The last tournament was played in 2008. It would be nice to see it happen again, but with Fifa's strict international calendar it is pretty much impossible. It would also be a little disconcerting to many a Maltese person if the MFA did indeed find a way to start it again and asked Azerbaijan to make a return, and also invited Panama. And if the Maltese Prime Minister suddenly took a huge interest in the Maltese national team rather than his ridiculous support of Milan, then the tournament would be on the front, not back, pages of the newspapers.
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