H2H: San Marino vs. Russia – Prediction (EURO Qualification

Preview and Teams Comparison.

Ranked #209 by FIFA, San Marino have done their lowly status complete justice by losing every single game in this qualifying campaign. All of their defeats have been by a margin of 2+ goals, and they have conceded 5.11 goals per-match on average. Ultimately, it seems certain to be a mere case of how many they will concede. Marco Bernardi wrote his name into San Marino history after scoring their first home goal since 2013 last time out. One gleaming light in an otherwise dark tunnel for San Marino, who are also the lowest-ranked UEFA nation, is the fact they actually scored in defeat to Kazakhstan last time out. That goal was their first in 1,533 minutes of play since their 5-1 defeat to Azerbaijan in September 2017.

San Marino have lost at both HT/FT in all games throughout this qualifying campaign. The tiny hosts’ 9-0 loss in the reverse H2H marked their worst defeat since a 10-0 thrashing by Croatia in 2016. Russia have averaged just 1.67 bookings per match across their last six competitive away games.

On the other hand, Russia’s meteoric rise continues with a comfortable progression to the EURO 2020 finals (W7, L2). Prior to their recent thumping vs #1 ranked Belgium, Russia won three consecutive games without reply. Interestingly though, two of Russia’s last three victories vs nations ranked below #90 by FIFA saw just a single-goal margin. Russian veteran Artem Dzyuba scored three goals across their last two qualifying victories, all of which came after half-time. A clear majority (20) of Russia’s 28 goals in this group have come in five games against sub-#90 ranked nations (4.0 scored per-match on average). Nine of those goals were scored before the interval (for 1.8 first-half goals per-match on average), whilst four of the five victories in this sequence came at both HT/FT.