San Marino vs Gibraltar prediction: EUROPE: UEFA Nations League – League D betting tips on match 2024-11-14 19:45.
[p]No matter what happens in the final pair of UEFA Nations League (UNL) matches, San Marino can hold their heads high after kicking it off with what was their first ever competitive victory, a 1-0 success against Liechtenstein. They’ve since followed that up with a defeat by the same scoreline away to Gibraltar, yet an immediate chance for redemption awaits here as FIFA’s lowest ranked nation seek to maintain hope of breaking into League C for the first time. [/p]
[p]Languishing in League D for as long as this competition has existed, San Marino had actually failed to score a single goal across seven home encounters until their famous campaign opener (D1, L6). The only draw in the aforementioned sequence came against Gibraltar and whilst none of the three historical H2Hs saw more than one goal scored in total (D1, L2), five of San Marino’s UNL home defeats have come via multi-goal margins.[/p]
[p]Relegated from League C last time around, Gibraltar can seal an immediate return to that level with victory here in what is their final game of this campaign. They’ll additionally be looking to build on what is comfortably the longest unbeaten run in their history (W2, D3) which ended their prior horrific 29-game winless run of competitive matches beforehand (D4, L25), with the second of those victories coming in the reverse.[/p]
[p]Now with ten games under their belt in away UNL action (W2, D2, L6), Gibraltar will likely travel with confidence in one of the rare occasions in which they bear the favourites tag. The visitors have kept clean sheets in all of their UNL trips in which they avoided defeat, two of which came against Liechtenstein and San Marino in succession, a scenario which may well repeat itself here after drawing 0-0 against the former in their latest trip. Â [/p]
[p]Players to watch: Nicko Sensoli was the hero for San Marino after scoring their sole goal in their only ever competitive win, although the hapless microstate have played three games without scoring since. Manchester United academy product James Scanlon could prove a threat for Gibraltar as he scored his first senior international goal at the start of this campaign and has six goal contributions already this month at club level (G4, A2).[/p]
[p]Hot stat: Just one of Gibraltar’s ten UNL away games saw both teams score. [/p]
[p][i]Written by Matthew Billon[/i][/p]