San Marino v Switzerland background
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Article summary
San Marino have yet to avoid defeat – or indeed score – against opponents Switzerland as the two sides meet in their third UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying Group E game.
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Article body
San Marino come into their opening UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying Group E encounter with Switzerland in a familiar position: they have never scored against the Swiss, let alone avoided defeat.
Match background
• The sides' only previous encounters were a 4-0 home loss and a 7-0 away defeat for San Marino in 1992 UEFA European Championship qualifying.
• Alain Sutter (7), Stéphane Chapuisat (27), Adrian Knup (43) and Frédéric Chassot (87) were the scorers in the first encounter between Giorgio Leoni's San Marino and Uli Stielike's Switzerland, in Serravalle on 14 November 1990.
• Knup (3 and 87), Marc Hottiger (13), Beat Sutter (29), Heinz Hermann (55), Christophe Ohrel (78) and Kubilay Türkyılmaz (90) were the scorers in the return fixture in St Gallen on 5 June 1991.
• At youth level, things have been similarly discouraging for San Marino, who have lost all five of their UEFA age-group competition matches against Switzerland, conceding 25 times – ten of them in the most recent of those encounters, a UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualifier in Belarus on 5 September 2009.
• SS Folgore/Falciano at least managed to score in the only UEFA club competition tie between sides from the two nations, though they lost 12-1 on aggregate to FC Basel 1893 in that 2000/01 UEFA Cup qualifying round tie. Alessandro Zanotti's 79th-minute header is thus the only Sammarinese goal to have been scored in a competitive match against Swiss opponents.
