San Marino vs Finland prediction and predicted line-ups: San Marino's League C debut. Nations League

San Marino play their first game in League C on Saturday 26 September, at home in Serravalle to Jacob Friis's Finland, who have won all six previous meetings. Marco Tura, president of the San Marino federation, said on Sunday 20 September: “C'è da tremare perché la Finlandia e ancora di più l'Albania sono due squadre di categoria superiore, di fascia, io oserei dire, B” (There's reason to tremble, because Finland, and Albania even more, are from a higher category, I would even say League B). Roberto Cevoli's side cannot be relegated, though.

San Marino vs Finland: kick-off time and venue

San Marino vs Finland kicks off at 17:00 UK time (18:00 CEST) on Saturday 26 September at the San Marino Stadium in Serravalle, which holds 4,564. It is Group C1 of League C in the Nations League, with Albania and Belarus. The winners go up to League B and the runners-up play off against a League B side; nobody goes down this time, because the competition will have three leagues from the next edition. Finland's camp in Italy began on Monday 21 September, and this week they are training at the Santamonica stadium in Misano Adriatico.

Team news

By Wednesday morning, 23 September, the San Marino federation had not yet named its squad. The only confirmed call-up at that point was Arzignano forward Nicola Nanni, who plays in Italy's Serie C and will miss two league games. According to Tura the most serious injury is Filippo Berardi's, the scorer of San Marino's last goal against Finland, and Tommaso Benvenuti had not yet recovered.

Friis is without Miro Tenho, who suffered a head injury playing for Djurgården on 20 September and misses at least this game; Leo Väisänen and Doni Arifi have been called up.

San Marino vs Finland predicted line-ups

Neither XI holds up: Cevoli and Friis have given nothing away, there are no reliable previews and San Marino's squad had not been named by Wednesday morning. For San Marino the starting point is the group who started both friendlies in June: goalkeeper Edoardo Colombo, Michele Cevoli, Alessandro Tosi, Marco Pasolini, Lorenzo Capicchioni, Samuele Zannoni, Nicolas Giacopetti and Nanni. Finland's last two games were started by Monaco's Lukas Hradecky, Tony Miettinen, Ville Koski, Ryan Mahuta, Adam Marhiev, Anssi Suhonen and Leo Walta. Up front Palermo's Joel Pohjanpalo and Daniel Håkans are competing with Benjamin Källman, Topi Keskinen and Robin Lod. The official line-ups are released about an hour before kick-off.

Head-to-head and form

Six meetings, six Finland wins and only two San Marino goals: the last game ended 2-1 to Finland in Serravalle on 20 November 2023, with a 90th-minute penalty from Berardi, five months after a 6-0 in Helsinki. San Marino reached League C by winning Group D1 in 2024/25, with two wins over Liechtenstein; they lost their last five World Cup qualifiers, scoring one and conceding 31, including a 10-0 defeat in Austria. They played four friendlies in 2026 without a win. Finland ended their qualifiers with two defeats, 4-0 in the Netherlands and 1-0 at home to Malta, and in friendlies lost 4-0 in Germany on 31 May and 2-1 in Hungary on 5 June.

Our San Marino vs Finland prediction

Our call is at least two goals, confidence 7 out of 10. Five of the six previous meetings produced at least two goals, and San Marino conceded 31 in their last five competitive games. Full-back Lähteenmäki put it simply on Tuesday 22 September: “Jos pidetään oma maali puhtaana ja tehdään pari maalia, niin se riittää” (If we keep a clean sheet and score a couple, that's enough). The group's other game, Albania vs Belarus, kicks off at 19:45 UK time; the whole round is in our matchday one preview.

Every game with our calls is on the Nations League page. The record of settled calls is in the results history, and our calls on individual players are in player predictions.