Cyprus vs Spain Preview

Spain will travel to the Alphamega Stadium in Kolossi this Thursday to take on Cyprus in Round 9 of the 2024 European Championship qualifiers.

The hosts have been terrible in this version of the European Championship qualifiers, with seven straight losses in all games, leaving them rooted at the bottom of Group A.

The most recent of those defeats was a 4-0 loss against Georgia, which meant that only minnows San Marino have conceded more goals than Cyprus’ 25 in this qualifying campaign.

To add to their misery, they have recorded just one win from their last 13 outings across competitions (D2, L10). This has continued to intensify the pressure on under-fire Cyprus manager Temur Ketsbaia.

It has been a horrible two years for the island nation, leaving them on the verge of Nations League relegation. And things are unlikely to get any better when they welcome Spain, who handed them their joint-biggest defeat of this century (6-0) in the reverse fixture in September. It was one of eight defeats from nine H2Hs (W1), six of which were ‘to nil’.

Meanwhile, Spain have already booked their place in Germany next year after back-to-back wins over Scotland (2-0) and Norway (1-0) in the October international break.

Those wins form part of an impressive sequence by Luis de la Fuente’s side, who have bounced back brilliantly from losing to Scotland in March by winning four successive Euro qualifiers matches, while also lifting a maiden Nations League title by beating Croatia on penalties in June.

The manager insists there’s much more success to come from his team, and he will now be gunning for the top spot in Group A after going top of the group based on goal difference thanks to their 6-0 rout of Cyprus.

They are favourites for a win here too, given their impressive record of suffering just two defeats in Euro qualifier games since 2006, winning 38 times (D3) and failing to score in only one of those 43 clashes.