European Championships Qualifier: San Marino v. Lithuania

European Championships Qualifier: San Marino v. Lithuania

Monday 8^th September 2014

European Championships Qualifying Group E

Stadio Olimpico, Serravalle, San Marino

San Marino get their Euro 2016 campaign up and running with a home fixture against Lithuania; a match which according to the world rankings represents San Marino’s best hope for avoiding a defeat in this group.

Best hope it may be but it’s a rather slim and unlikely one.  Lithuania are currently ranked 103^rd by FIFA as compared to San Marino’s 208^th, but that does make them the second lowest ranked team in the group.  For completeness, the other rankings are Switzerland (9^th), England (20^th), Slovenia (39^th) and Estonia (93^rd).  It doesn’t sound quite so bad if I mention that Lithuania re the 45^th ranked European team, a mere 8 places above San Marino, but let’s be honest; the world ranking figure is a truer reflection in this case.

Then again, the last time these two were paired together was in the qualifying for the 2006 World Cup and on that occasion the home match was only lost 1-0; Lithuania scoring the only goal late in the first half.  The away match had already been lost 4-0 however.  As always, a more realistic hope is for San Marino to try and score a goal rather than the unlikely event of avoiding a defeat.

Lithuania finished 4^th in their World Cup 2014 qualifying group, the group won by Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was also the position they finished in the last Euro qualifiers.  If there is to be a glimmer of hope, perhaps it comes from that Euro 2012 group where Lithuania failed lost and drew in their two matches with Liechtenstein (the only team San Marino have ever beaten) and picked up their solitary win away in the Czech Republic.  However they did put that right with home and away wins over Liechtenstein in their 2014 World Cup group.

Most recently Lithuania won two of their three summer matches beating Poland in their last friendly, and Finland in a Baltic Cup clash.  In between they lost 1-0 to Latvia in the Baltic Cup Final.

The other teams in Group E are in action on Monday too with the following fixtures:

Estonia v. Slovenia

Switzerland v. England

San Marino’s full Euro 2016 fixtures are as follows:

8^th September 2014         San Marino v. Lithuania

9^th October 2014               England v. San Marino

14^th October 2014             San Marino v. Switzerland

15^th November 2014       San Marino v. Estonia

27^th March 2015                Slovenia v. San Marino

14^th June 2015                    Estonia v. San Marino

5^th September 2015         San Marino v. England

8^th September 2015         Lithuania v. San Marino

9^th October 2015               Switzerland v. San Marino

12^th October 2015             San Marino v. Slovenia