San Marino vs Cyprus Prediction: Early goal in dead rubber?

San Marino cannot qualify for the World Cup through their group performance, but they may still qualify for the play-offs thanks to winning their Nations League group. 

Their next test comes at home against Cyprus (14:00, Sunday), with the island nation unable to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. I really drew the short straw previewing this dead rubber. Anyway, below you can find my San Marino vs Cyprus predictions and I promise to add entertainment and random facts to this football preview.

Team News

Did you know that San Marino is the fifth-smallest country in the world, with only the Vatican City, Monaco, Nauru and Tuvalu boasting a smaller land area than its 61 km2 (23.5 mi2)? Out of the 34,042 residents, there will be 11 footballers chosen to start this game, with Nicola Nanni now the second-highest goalscorer in their history - with four goals to his name. 

He will start, along with some other domestic players such as Alessandro Golinucci, Dante Rossi and Alessandro Tosi. San Marino have conceded 28 goals in qualifying and will want to tighten up at the back here. 

Football Odds

Cyprus drew 2-2 with Bosnia-Herzegovina last time out and I expect Akis Mantzios to name the same team here. Ioannis Pittas scored in that draw and should lead the line again having scored 11 goals in 52 fixtures for his country.

Today's Football Fixtures

San Marino vs Cyprus Odds

San Marino are 10/1 to win this game, while Cyprus are the 2/7 favourites giving them an implied win probability of 78%. A draw is 9/2 while over 1.5 goals is 2/9 and BTTS is 6/5.

A Cyprus win to nil is 19/20, while Pittas is 5/2 to open the scoring in this World Cup qualifier. 

Cyprus to win to nil @ 19/20

Cyprus won the reverse fixture 2-0 back in March, but on a more interesting and irrelevant note - did you know Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus - is the last divided capital in the world? There’s a ‘Green Line’ that separates the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus in the south from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus - and 2024 marked 50 years since the sectors were divided. 

On the pitch, Cyprus have posted back-to-back 2-2 draws and two good displays against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania, while San Marino were hammered 10-0 by Austria in their latest outing. As always, the minnows are up against it here and this qualification group has been pretty brutal for them. The world's oldest republic, founded in 301 AD by St. Marinus, have a football team that is improving - but they are likely to come up short again here. 

World Cup Odds

First goal 1-10 minutes @ 3/1

Did you know that the quickest goal in the history of international football was scored by Christoph Baumgartner of Austria, as he took just six seconds to find the net against Slovakia in March 2024? Well, we could do with something similar on Sunday as my second selection is for there to be a goal scored within the first 10 minutes. 

Austria were already 2-0 up by the 10-minute mark, while in the game before, San Marino were 1-0 down to Malta after five minutes, and 2-0 down after 11. They don’t tend to start strongly, but neither do Cyprus, having conceded in the first ten minutes in each of their last two outings. A fun selection for this dead rubber, which hopefully will contain an early goal. 

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