TOFTIR , Faroe Islands — With a population of just over 49,000, one may be for mistaken for wondering where such a small country could find eleven competitive football players. But find them they did and in perhaps one of the biggest upsets in the World Cup 2010 qualifying matches to date, Lithuania stunningly lost to their hosts 2-1 and fell out of qualification.

Ranked 166th in world, the small group of islands of the coast of Norway were on paper at least only supposed to present a minor hurdle for Lithuania in keeping alive their dreams of qualifying for next year’s World Cup. Obviously someone had forgotten to tell the Faroe Islands this, as they fought well above their weight to record a historic victory for the country.

An early goal to Faroe Islands Súni Olsen was not enough to set the alarm bells ringing in the Lithuanian camp because the equalizer courtesy of Tomas Danilevic just eight minutes later restored some form of normality to match.

However, the Faroe Islands proved they weren’t done yet with a second goal coming to the hosts in the 35th minute when Arnbjørn Olsen scored what proved to be the winning goal. This is the first victory for the Faroe Islands in a qualifying match since they beat Luxembourg in 2001. In fact, just by scoring two goals they have doubled their goal count for this campaign to date.

The Lithuanians will have little to say for themselves as they have now ultimately fallen out of qualifying contention. They now lie six points behind second-placed France with games against top of the pool Serbia and Austria to come.