I always wanted Azeris to meet Greeks, but I guess in future..

Meanwhile, Greece always have easy qualifying groups and I tip u to be in Euro 2012

 

Once again we meet.

Good luck:smileani:

 

Yes indeed. I'd say everyone from Croatia on down should be happy with this draw.

Croatia has some very technical players both on defence and in the midfield. They've been almost impossible to beat at the Maksimir the last years. They also have a very astute coach who this last campaign aside has shown he is able to get alot out of his players. They keys for us here will be to disrupt their midfield flow. Thankfully Croatia is not in a positive mind set lately and *perhaps* we can take advantage of this if we can play them early.

Israel troubled us more than the win and draw showed. At Ramat Gan they are as hard to crack as Croatia at home. Benayoun and Sahar are two very dangerous players. Our height will play a huge role here I believe. We will need to capitalize on our size vs the Israelis.

Latvia should not trouble us much to be honest. We need maximum pts here.

Georgia is one of those tricky lower seeds. They are a confidence team who early on in qualifying can make upsets but who usually begin to get depressed as time goes on and by the end are usually easy wins. I'd like to play this team in the middle of the campaign for best chances.

Malta. Anything other than 6pts is a big failure.

 

Nice resume.

That will be pretty much the scenrio IMO aswell. Israel is searching for a new coach and depending on who will assume we will stand a chance or not. We have many talented players who could guide us to a major tournament, but no manager has explored that well.

What is Rehaguel status? Will he continue after the WC?

 

Top 2 should definitely be the aim. First spot might be decided in who drops the least points against the other sides, although Israel should not be underestimated.

Good luck Icarus and the rest of you, I'll definitely be rooting for you guys in this group. :thumbsup:

 

I think this group will be tight like a tiger, go Greece!

 

Greece and Croatia should finish in the first two places, I think the head-to-head matches between them will decide the group winner.

 

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Teams P W D L F A +/- Pts
1 Greece 7 5 2 0 9 3 6 17
2 Croatia 7 5 1 1 13 4 9 16
3 Israel 8 4 1 3 10 8 2 13
4 Georgia 8 2 3 3 5 6 -1 9
5 Latvia 7 2 1 4 6 9 -3 7
6 Malta 7 0 0 7 3 16 -13 0

We are undefeated with a trip to Latvia coming up on Tuesday. 3pts there will do alot for our chances to win the group with Croatia in Athens next month.

On the plus side Israel and Croatia meet also that Tuesday and thus someone of them is likely to be eliminated.

The tie with Georgia on the 1st matchday looms large now, but for some reason we always seem to start slow and finish strong. A trip to Tbilisi will round out our journey in October.

Fernando Santos has not lost as Greek coach since taking over from Rehaggel after the WC. :thumbsup:

 

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P W D L F A +/- Pts
Greece 9 6 3 0 12 4 8 21
Croatia 9 6 1 2 16 7 9 19
Israel 9 4 1 4 11 11 0 13
Latvia 9 3 2 4 9 10 -1 11
Georgia 9 2 4 3 6 7 -1 10
Malta 9 0 1 8 4 19 -15 1

One point vs Georgia and we're off....

 

We're going to the Euros with the 2-1 win in Tbilisi tonight.

 

Yes!!! I noticed many Croats are calling us lucky on their board, there were some responses, but of course they were deleted! Here is one that made me laugh and my response before it was deleted for... logical, polite -reality.

I love these catchy phrases as much as the next bloke but the fact is teams going down to 10 men due to injury doesn't happen too often...especially not with 15 and 20 minutes to go in matches...this had nothing to dow with them deserving it...they just got lucky...



No. I'm just pissed off that we could have pinched a direct spot, despite all the crap that's gone on in this qual. cycle, but were denied the chance by an unfortunate roll of the ankle (or whatever that injury was, it looked like an ankle/lower leg injury)...as a fan I have the right to be pissed...

Ketsbaia is a shit coach, he made all his subs by the 65th minute in a physical game. If anything, Greece were lucky Georgia had this coach, the same coach you played. Also, I think if anything, Greece were unlucky in this competition, these were the first team players missing tonight through injuries and suspensions..

Maniantis (RB), Sifakis(GK), Fetfatzidis (AM), Torosidis (RB), Ninis (AM), Tzavellas (LB) - (all injured)

Samaras (AM), Avraam (CB), Zaradoukas (LB) (all suspended..)

That is 9 starting players missing,.. Vyntra is 3rd choice RB! Spyropoulos is third choice LB.. Xaristeas is 4th Choice winger!! We also had injured players, averaging about 4 starters out a game for all the qualifiers!

As for luck and stuff, I believe both Croatia and Greece are second tier sides.. Greece is just has slightly better player and a slightly better coach.

 

He can think what he wants. First they have a problem with the way we score (set pieces - even though most of our goals were from open play like today), then they rue the Georgian injury, but it not our fault if Ketsbaia used his subs with 25 minutes to play, and I didn't remember Suho or any other Croat crying for us when we were 0-0 and down to 10 men in Malta and still scored and won, nor do I remember him crying for the depleted nature of our team these last 2 matches.

Croatia weren't denied anything. We got 4pts out of the possible six with them. They never scored a goal. We never lost a match. Why should this result (Greece winning the group) shock anyone? 5 goals allowed in 10 games. It would have been unfortunate for Greece NOT to win this group with those statistics.

The problem with the Croats is that they think they're better than they are, and that we're worse than we are. So they've a couple of guys who play for Tottenham. The rest aren't lighting the world's best clubs on fire by any means.

Anyways, enough of Croatia. They're someone else's problem now.

 

Congrats Greece, at least I have a team to root for! :strong:

 

You weren't by chance in Piraeus last week rooting were you? :smileani:

 

Greece didn't lose a single game.

Well done.

 

Thanks mate :thumbsup:

Spain, Germany, England, Italy and Greece were the only undefeated teams in qualifying.

I believe we might crack the top 10 FIFA rankings again.

 

Congrats to Greece for qualifying....They've been a very solid side in the past decade

 

One can only hope that Greece maintain this solidity. They could have done better in the last World Cup. I never quite understood how the team lost it's style after winning Euro 2004. A style which was flawless.

I want to see them play again. Icarus, how good would you say the team was at keeping possession and defending?

 

Greece would do well, has many great player.....they can do it again like 2004

 

Greece Russia 1-1 (Int Fr)

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Russia is one of those boogeyman teams for Greece, so the result is not bad per se, but I think we were unlucky not to win. 2 out of the 3 goals we had called back were good calls, but the one of the 3 was kosher.

Fernando Santos is still undefeated since he took the helm of Greece. 18 matches dating back to summer 2010. Good for him! :thumbsup: He is not scared to call up guys from lower sides as he actually LIVES in Greece unlike Rehaggel who lived in Germany while coaching the NT, and since he has coached PAO, PAOK and AEK so he knows the football there very well.

Scarf, the team has some players who actually like taking on opponents 1v1 now (Fetfatzidis, Fotakis, Ninis) so its interesting for us. We have a solid collection at the back (as usual). I believe about 80% of the goals we scored in qualifying were from open play rather than dead balls. Most teams focus on that with respect to us, but truth is we haven't been a set piece team in a while. Problem was the German didn't understand how to change tactics and would set us up for defending and set pieces (a la playing 5 CBs at the WC).

On another note, Greek-Uruguayan Jose Holebas from Olympaikos got his first cap for Greece a week after getting citizenship. Did well too.

 

You guys flying under the radar again, good coach and a few good young players coming through to replace the old guard.

 

There's some potential, but potential is just that until translated into some results. I believe this tournament is a do-or-die kind of situation. The last couple have not gone well, but I see alot of enthusiasm by the players - or at least those not named Karagounis/Katsouranis - and really feel comfortable with Fernando Santos.

He has already introduced a ton of new blood like K.Papadopoulos, Fotakis, Fetfatzidis, Giannou, Zaradoukas, Athanasiadis and Holebas. Definitely not afraid to try new players and doesn't line us up to play scared like Otto did.

 

And we knew it was coming. After a year and a half unbeaten run Romania won 3-1 today in a friendly and Santos has his first loss.

Quite a queer lineup by Santos with some players who would never be starters, but the team overall looked lethargic and bad aside from some pressure when Karagounis scored.

The Romanians did well and scored some nice goals.

Hopefully this was an aberration.

On another note, 3 new faces to the NT with Kapino, Theodoridis and Malezas. None were particularly impressive. Only 3 starters from the team that faced Russia on Saturday.