The hot June of the Nationals, between Nations League and European qualifiers
With the excellent tests in March still very much alive in their minds, the San Marino national teams are looking forward to a busy start to June. Let’s start with Major: after the encore of friendlies, in which he put Lithuania in difficulty and did well with Cape Verde, Fabrizio Costantini will face his first official commitments as CT. In 10 days, the biancazzurri will play 3 of the 4 games of the Nations League group. Matches that will be broadcast on the San Marino sports channel RTV: live the away ones, deferred the internal ones.
It starts on Thursday June 2, at 6 pm, in the home of Estonia, relegated from League C after the knockout in the playout with Cyprus. The Baltics evoke one of the sweetest memories of San Marino football, lo 0-0 snatched from Serravalle in qualifying for Euro 2016. With Manzaroli on the bench and, on the field, many of the members of the group: from Simoncini to Vitaioli, passing through Palazzi, Manuel Battistini, Enrico Golinucci, Rinaldi and Hirsch. 2 knockouts in the other previous ones, 2-0 in the same qualifiers and 1-0 in the 2002 friendly.Estoniathat in the recent world qualifications he finished ahead of Belarus, with 4 points.
5 instead those collected, always in the race to Qatar, by Malta, capable of beating Cyprus 3-0 and equalizing with Slovakia. With the Maltese, San Marino will play for for Sunday in line, always for the nations: at home on June 5th, 3pm, and away on June 12th at 8.45pm. With Malta, which in the last edition finished second behind the Faroe Islands and ahead of Latvia and Andorra, there is only one friendly precedentin 2012: it was 3-2 for the islanderswith Daniele Rinaldi to sign one of the blue and white markings (the other by Manuel Marani). And between these two races there is one first against Icelandto be addressed in friendly, at the Stadium, Thursday 9 June, at 8.45pm.
And then there is theU21 by Matteo Cecchetti, who in his second as CT has already pocketed his first useful result, the 0-0 with Latvia. Now they are the last two of the two-year European qualifiers, both difficult. There are Poland and Israel: third and second in the group, divided by a point, they compete for a place in the playoffs and therefore need to win, possibly with many goals. With the Poland you play men home on June 2 at 8:30 pm – broadcast live on San Marino RTV – with Israel away, on June 7, at 6 pm.