The other World Cup final

While Brazil were beating Germany on Sunday, the world's two lowest-ranking football teams were also fighting it out, amid the mountains of Bhutan. Rose George travelled to the Himalayan kingdom to watch an extraordinary contest

Before the match begins, the English referee, Steve Bennett, surveys the scene. In front of him, 15,000 spectators wait peacefully under their umbrellas in considerable heat. A group of yellow-and-red T-shirts indicates the supporters of the home team, Bhutan. The green shirts next to them support the opposition team, Montserrat, though every one of them is Bhutanese. Every five minutes or so, they break into Montserrat's de facto national anthem, "Feeling Hot Hot Hot", before the Bhutanese reply with a hearty rendition of "In Bhutan, where sandalwood is grown and found". Behind the crowd, the Himalayas rise spectacularly under thunderclouds that gave Bhutan one of its names, and to the side, a Bhutanese band practise on long metal didgeridoos called doons. "Wow," says Bennett. "The Premier League would have to go some way to beat this."

This is the Other Final. A match as historic as the more famous one, and taking place on the same day, though this fixture is between the two lowest-ranking teams in Fifa, on a scrappy ground 4,000ft above sea level, in the middle of monsoon season. We are in the Land of the Thunder Dragon, as Bhutan is generally known, which sits at 202 in Fifa's world rankings, directly above Montserrat at 203. The Dragon XI are facing the Monster Rats in the last independent Himalayan kingdom in the world, known mostly for its restrictive tourist fee ($200 a day) and its unique concept of Gross National Happiness, a policy of limited development instituted by King Jigme Singye Wanchuck, a monarch far removed from the European variety – not least because of his four wives (all sisters) and 10 children – and beloved by his subjects, though they aren't permitted to look into his eyes.

Montserrat is a colourful opponent; the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, settled by Irish planters from St Kitts, famous for calypso and black sand beaches, but known these days for the massive volcanic eruption in 1995 that destroyed two-thirds of the island, scattered half its 11,000-strong population over the globe, and famously inspired the Development Minister, Clare Short, to complain that "they'll be wanting golden elephants next."

The match was a simple concept – the brainchild of a Dutch media company, KesselsKramer – but it has huge consequences. Bhutan did not let in the outside world until 1974, at the king's coronation. Even now, it has only 6,000 tourists a year, while Nepal next door gets millions. "In 20 years, Bhutan has leapt from the Middle Ages to the 21st century," says Thuji Nadik, deputy director of tourism. "Nowhere else on earth has done that." In just over two decades, the Bhutanese have had their first experience of paved roads, cars, aircraft, telephones and TV. The capital may have open drains and hordes of stray dogs and not a single traffic light, but there are cyber-cafés and scores of hotels and plans to build six luxurious resorts.

The most secluded kingdom in the world has opened its door, partly by choice and partly by necessity. "We are sandwiched between India and China," explains Thuji. "They're the two most populous countries on the planet." Tibet is Bhutan's neighbour, and everyone knows what happened there. In the other direction, Bhutan looks at the examples of Sikkim or Ladakh, both independent Himalayan kingdoms a century ago, now overtaken by India. Contact with the global community is Bhutan's safety net from both its overbearing big brothers. But before this match, neither team had heard of the other's country. "Please, madam," a schoolgirl asked me one day in perfect English (the language of instruction in Bhutan), "can you show me where Montserrat is on the map?" The standard Montserratian reply: "Look for Antigua – we're the dot next door."

The men from the dot hadn't heard of Bhutan either. Nor were they aware of the undertaking required to get there: the journey to Bhutan took five days, including four planes just to get from Montserrat to Amsterdam. The day after they arrived, half the team fell sick with food poisoning, and the other half got altitude sickness. "I think we have some advantages," says the Bhutan captain, Wangyel Dorji, before the match. "Home ground, home crowd, home altitude. They're big, but we're faster."

He was right. Football may have appeared in Bhutan only in the 1970s, and like their opponents, all the players are amateurs. But the Dragon XI have a lot to prove. "We went to Kuwait just before we joined Fifa and got beaten 20-0," says Dinesh Chettri, a striker, still wincing at the memory. "It was fixed – we got a Kuwaiti official drunk and he said they wanted to beat the world record of goals scored, and they paid everyone. But we got so much criticism when we came back that we have to win."

Perhaps that accounts for their assiduous preparations: the Montserratians said a prayer during pre-match training, but Bhutan went further: 45 minutes away, in fact, to the Dechen Phug monastery, where they prayed that they would play fairly and have no injuries. Whatever the spiritual input, the Other Final belonged to Bhutan. After only four minutes, Wangyel Dorji scored. The Montserratians moved sluggishly because of the altitude, while the Bhutanese were relentlessly energetic. A clever free kick netted them another goal, and two more Bhutan goals came within two minutes of each other in the second half, giving the captain a hat-trick. "It was a good game," says Bennett, more used to refereeing Owens and Beckhams and certainly not used to hearty cries of, "Good call, ref!" from the crowd. "It's probably non-professional-league standard in the UK, but it was pretty exciting football."

The Other Final was football as it used to be, should be and, in most of the world, at the grassroots, probably still is. After all, where else would half the home crowd be supporting the opposition? The support was genuine: every move of the Montserratians got a chorus of "hot hot hot", to the surprise of the visitors. "Back home," said the veteran Montserrat striker Pops Mitchell after the match, "our crowds would never cheer for the opposition. Sometimes they don't even cheer for us."

The Montserratians may not have scored but they got a cup out of it at least: the metal trophy cleaved in two, in the spirit of fairness. And all the players joined in a Buddhist dance, to conclude proceedings in the most auspicious way possible. "I don't think anyone will forget now that there are two beautiful countries called Bhutan and Montserrat," says the team manager, Claude Hogan, an MP and diplomat back home. "Since 1995 it's been one struggle to the next. We can show the world that we are a strong, resilient community. That we can rebuild Montserrat, just like people here can modernise Bhutan."

And the world can be reminded of fair play, too. Bhutan's schoolchildren so impressed Prime Minister Wangchuck with their cheering, he declared the next day a school holiday. Even the Montserratians weren't too downhearted, except for the Nottingham-based striker Vladimir "Santo" Farrell, glumly sitting in the lobby, watching the other final in Yokohama. "I'm too depressed, man. I've had enough of football. We just didn't try hard enough." But Pops Mitchell is feeling upbeat. "Wait till we get them down to sea level. That'll be a whole different scenario."

The Bhutanese TV journalist Tshewang Dhendup spent 110 minutes of the Other Final commentating for Montserratian radio. He's Berkeley-educated and cynical by profession. "I'm embarrassed to say how emotional this is," he says. "The score's not important. We would never have met these guys before. I've had 10-year-old kids telling me that Montserrat has seven active volcanoes, when six months ago they'd never heard of the place. That's a goal in itself."