Romania vs Cyprus Prediction: Hosts can school Cyprus again

Romania welcome Cyprus to the National Arena in Bucharest for a Uefa World Cup qualifier in Group H on Tuesday (19:45). The two teams have both collected three points to date but Cyprus have a game in hand on their hosts.

In a group containing Bosnia-Herzegovina and Austria, this is considered a match in which both teams cannot afford to lose. Read on for my Romania vs Cyprus predictions, accompanied by the latest team news and match odds.

Football Odds

Team News

Romania are without regular stars Radu Dragusin, Ianis Hagi and Valentin Mihaila due to their respective injury issues. The Tricolorii are unable to call upon captain Nicolae Stanciu, who must serve a one-game suspension for picking up two yellow cards across the first three qualifying matches.

Florin Tanase is in contention to replace the suspended Stanciu after coming off after scoring from the bench to net his fourth goal for his country in the defeat to Austria.

The hosts recently played Cyprus in the Uefa Nations League at this same venue back in November, winning 4-1. Daniel Birligea, Razvan Marin (brace) and Florinel Coman were all on the scoresheet that day, with only the latter not involved in this month's squad.

Birligea is likely to lead the line once again, while Marin is set to continue in the engine room alongside former Tottenham Hotspur man Vlad Chiriches.

Cyprus boss Akis Mantzios is set to make changes to the side that drew 2-2 with Bulgaria last time out, which could lead to Konstantinos Laifis (the equalising goalscorer) and Giannis Satsias featuring in the back four.

Loizos Loizou and Andronikos Kakoullis will be pushing to start in Bucharest in a bid to improve their team's attacking threat.

Young forward Nikos Koutsakos is hoping to retain his place in the starting lineup after marking his international debut with a goal at the weekend.

Romania vs Cyprus Odds

Romania are considered the 2/7 favourites to come out on top in this clash, and they have won the last two meetings between the two sides. Their most recent encounter saw both teams get on the scoresheet and adding this market to the selection produces an 11/5 (which has an implied probability of 31.3%) price.

BTTS on its own is available at 5/4.

Cyprus' last outing ended in a stalemate and the draw is marketed at 9/2 on this occasion. The visitors are 10/1 to come away with the three points, which they have achieved in two of their previous five outings in all competitions.

Romania and both teams to score @ 11/5

Romania's qualifying campaign has not started as well as they would have liked but they still sit second in the standings and they have the chance to improve their position with a victory over Cyprus.

As I mentioned earlier, the Tricolorii beat their opponents 4-1 in the Nations League back in November, while beating them 3-0 in the reverse fixture in October. Their WC qualifier defeats have come against Austria and Bosnia, arguably the two strongest teams in the group, so they will be expected to bounce back against Cyprus, and this is a match they will consider a must-win.

Romania have the attacking quality to hurt Cyprus again, even with Stanciu out through suspension. I think they can produce another high-scoring victory but I do think BTTS is worth backing because the hosts haven't kept a clean sheet in their last five games.

Daniel Birligea anytime goalscorer @ 13/10

FCSB attacker Birligea was on the scoresheet when the two teams last met in November but he was not named in the squad for March's qualifiers. He has had to work his way back into head coach Mircea Lucescu's squad and now that he is back in, he will try to make himself undroppable in his boss' eyes.

His goal against Cyprus was his only senior national team goal to date in four appearances but I think he's worth backing to double his total on Tuesday.

Considering the visitors have conceded seven goals against Romania in their past two meetings, you feel that Birligea will be presented with a handful of chances to get on the scoresheet, and I think he has the quality to convert at least one of them.

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