Cyprus sweep San Marino aside

Cyprus opened their 2013 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying campaign with an emphatic 6-0 win against Group 1 opponents San Marino.

Charalambos Dimosthenous opened the scoring in Nicosia on six minutes, with Stelios Demetriou, Markos Michail and Valentinos Sielis all finding the net to make it 4-0 inside 70 minutes. Michail went on to complete his hat-trick and send Cyprus top of the section.

Stamatis Pantos, Ioannis Hadjivasili and Andreas Pittaras set the tone early on for Cyprus, though it was Dimosthenous who found the net with a powerful long-range shot. Georgios Economides's penalty was saved on 20 minutes, but Demetriou soon made amends by turning in Hadjivasili's pass to make it 2-0.

Cyprus twice went close with headers before adding a third seven minutes after half-time, Mihail applying the finish. Sielis got in on the act with a free-kick which went in via San Marino keeper Mattia Manzaroli before Mihail contributed two more goals with a 76th-minute header and a spot-kick four minutes from time.

San Marino resume their campaign against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 1 June, while Cyprus travel to Germany on 10 August.