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Greece vs Belgium (3 September 2017- World Cup Qualifier- Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus)


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My opinion of Skibbe hasn't changed since after the first couple of games he was in charge. It is good that he is setting out our team to its strength. Play defence and counter. He called up Zeca because he is an energetic, hardworking player. Also because Maniatis is getting older. The problem I have with him is that he is calling up players that shouldn't be there. Diamantakos, Vellios, and some others. He needs to understand Mantalos can't play on the wing. Fortounis looks lazy at times. Donis needs to stay on the wing even though he did excellent and was man of the match for me. I just hope we win the next 2 games and things go in our favour for us because we didn't deserve to lose today and the match when we played them away 1-1. 

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12 minutes ago, Argy said:

I don't know if this was mentioned but even if we got the draw, we would still be 3rd and need to win out as Bosnia would likely still have the tie-break advantage. 

We would be 3rd Bosnia have +11 goal difference we would have had +7 had we drawn. Therefore we would have just needed to run up the score in the last game vs Gibraltar assuming we went into that game level on points. 

Bosnia will drop points to Belgium can't see them losing them no way.

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Donis will trouble most defenses but isn't a 15-20 goals a season player that will be much more valuable playing together with Mitroglou rather than having the defenders put most of their attention on him. I'm confident Greece will get the results against Cyprus away & Gibraltar at home but let's just hope Bosnia don't win both of their matches.

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22 minutes ago, georgelaz said:

there's really no excuse as to why fetfa hasn't been called up if Tziolis is starting for the NT and playing in the same damn league.

manager of the year award goes to Tziolis's manager lol.

 

Ya that's right. Tziolara must have some trash on the EPO to keep getting the call up!

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don't understand why everyone thinks Belgium is going to throw away the game in Bosnia. They want to remain in top pot for the world cup. plus their players will be fighting to make the squad for the finals. Italy just lost there first game in 56 games in world cup qualification. Do you think Italy hadn't qualified in past campaigns with a game to spare.

Edited by Megas
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Post game comments from agonasport.com (p.s I watched the Greece game online in HD off their site for $7.95. well worth it. better deal via monthly.)

“WE DESERVED BETTER” - SKIBBE
 

Greece coach Michael Skibbe believes Greece did not deserve to lose 2-1 to Belgium in Sunday’s crucial World Cup qualifier and is optimistic that his players can still make it to the 2018 finals in Russia.

WATCH Greek Sports and much more from any device with LIVE GREEK TV from AGONAsport! Details and purchase here...

Greece lost out narrowly to group favorites Belgium in a tightly-contested Group H encounter at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium in Athens, a result which secured the Belgians a place at nxt summer’s showpiece while jeopardizing the hosts’ hopes of qualifying in the process.

“First of all I would like to congratulate Belgium on the win and reaching the World Cup,” said Skibbe.

The German added: “From my point of view though, we played an excellent match today and showed that when we are on our game we can compete at a very high level and take on the best teams in the world. This is something that I’m very proud of a coach.”

“Over the 90 minutes I think we were the better team and we deserved to win this match. Belgium’s first goal came from nothing, and although the second goal was excellent, we had more chances overall.”

The result means Greece surrendered second spot – which gives Greece a shot at making the playoffs - to Bosnia and Herzegovina, who ran out comfortable 4-0 winners against section strugglers Gibraltar.

That is a slender margin, however, and there are still two rounds of fixtures to play, so Greece still have time to turn things around and claim second spot which leads to a two-legged playoff for the place at the World Cup.

Only one points separates the two teams, though, and Greece must now turn their attention to getting a win against Cyprus away from home in the next round of matches on October 7, and hope that Belgian can do them a favor when they travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina on the same night.

“Of course we are in a difficult position right now but it’s not impossible,” added Skibbe. “We simply have to win the last two matches and hope results can also go in our favor. We have to believe that Belgium will continue to try and win their matches.”

“I spoke with the players after the game and we agreed that we will have to repeat this performance in the final two matches and if we do that we know we will be in with a shot of reclaiming second place – and that’s what matters.”

‘OUR INDIVIDUAL QUALITY WAS THE DIFFERENCE’ - COURTOIS

Goals from Gert Vertongen and Romelu Lukaku proved enough to seal a vital win for Roberto Martinez’s Belgian team on the night, with Zeca momentarily levelling matters for Greece, as they became the first European team apart from hosts Russia to book a place at the 2018 finals.

While Greece were on top for long spells, Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois pointed to the individual quality of his team-mates as the deciding factor in explaining how the visitors came away with the three points.

“We are all very happy with making it to Russia 2018,” said the Chelsea custodian.

He added: “We knew it would be tough here but we came here to win and although Greece gave us a very difficult time we showed that we are the better team and are delighted with our well-deserved place at the World Cup.”

“We showed a lot of quality and character. If you look at it closely, we have players who are playing at some of the best clubs in the world and I think the individual quality of our players in the one-on-one battles all over the pitch was what proved the key in helping us win.”

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Ok, looks like Zeca is good enough for the ethniki after all.

Arab played well at RB.

Tziolaris and Samaris are on borrowed time.

Donis is the find of the decade.

Can't believe all the space allowed for Belgium's first goal, serious ball-watching.

 

 

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a point today wouldn't change anything, we'd still want bosnia not to beat belgium. the only positive thing that would come out of the draw would be the pshycological boost and 1 valuable however point in the race of the 8 best placed teams, in order not to come out as the worst of all even though i believe that this team will not be us.

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a point today  meant that if we smacked Gibraltar by 5-0 or 6-0 and  Cyprus 1-0 or 2-0...we may have pipped Bosnia on GD regardless if Bosnia win both matches....And also certainly have pipped Montenegro or EIRE...as we and Bosnia are now both in danger of missing out altogether...as the 9th best second based team..

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1 hour ago, ausgreek said:

Can't believe all the space allowed for Belgium's first goal, serious ball-watchiball-watch

I have not watched the replay but more than one people say that this was Samaris fault. He was the one supposed to mark the Belgian player.

Edited by PaoOle
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7 hours ago, Argy said:

I don't know if this was mentioned but even if we got the draw, we would still be 3rd and need to win out as Bosnia would likely still have the tie-break advantage. 

Exactly this.
This defeat was totally unrelated to the result since we know from the beginning hte goal scoring is against us.

Bosnia, either we drew yesterday or lost, MUST win Belgium. Considering Bosnia is playing in an away small ground with 0 attendance really does not exactly build the atmosphere they want in their home matches.

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3 hours ago, RED SHERIFF said:

a point today  meant that if we smacked Gibraltar by 5-0 or 6-0 and  Cyprus 1-0 or 2-0...we may have pipped Bosnia on GD regardless if Bosnia win both matches....And also certainly have pipped Montenegro or EIRE...as we and Bosnia are now both in danger of missing out altogether...as the 9th best second based team..

You re calculating the goals based on today. If Bosnia win Belgium they ll get extra goal difference which u re not taking account of. I am sorta confident that this team will win both matches left. Cyprus is as uninterested as Belgium, because they need all the other results, apart from winning us and Belgium and scraping 4 goals to each of us, to go their way.

This group proves to be hard in the end. Last WC we gathered 25 points and we were a pot 1 team. We ll win both and end up in 19.
Lithuania is much worse than Cyprus.
Bosnia is the same pot 2 team like the 2014 qualification and
instead of Latvia we got a Belgium. 

Stats clearly don't lie. We ve even scored more goals and the fact that we manage to score on the counter against better teams , 3 goals vs Bosnia and Belgium, while we struggled vs park the bus teams proves that we re on track with the Santos era. I am really hoping that Skibbe stays with the NT for another campaign.

 

Also, I had a friend here yesterday who quit following football when he started studying abroad. He hadnt seen the NT since wc 2014 and he told me that we have some players that we never really had. Modern football players Stafylidis Donis Fortounis Zeca who are very active on the field and very mobile players. I can't disagree with him that our NT is currently a lot better looking than when this campaign started. Not many static players. Even Samaris bursts his asss off and against Gibraltar he was looking lost and not in par with the opponent. Even against Estonia we didnt struggle, it was just the goal that was missing to prove who was the best team on the field.

Karma owes us the second spot.

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If we had drawn today...we would have been 4  goals behind Bosnia..

If Bosnia beat Belgium by 1 and Estonia by 2.

 

A 2-0 win at Cyprus and a 6-0 win over Gibraltar gets us second spot...

Also the extra point would be handy....As I am feeling as if though either Bosnia or greece will miss out altogether by being the 9th best second team.

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we'll have a more clear picture after today's games, i don't rule out the chance for that team to be greece but there are some groups which are a total mess..take for example ireland's group, montenegro's, nothern ireland's. ireland need to take at least 7 points from their 3 remaining games vs serbia (h), wales (a) and moldova (a). if they get 6 or less they're out. montenegro are playing romania (h), poland (a) and denmark (h) and they also need to take at least 7 points. again not the most possible scenario. nothern ireland have an easiet schedule with norway (a), germany and czechia (both h). they need 3 points to be guaranteed 2nd, but how possible would be for a team wich couldn't break san marino's defence and needed 75 minutes, to score against these teams? likely the group with england, scotland, slovenia and slovakia has 3 teams targeting 2nd place and most of them play each other in the upcoming games..

 

don't be that sure it's going to be us..we have 2 more or less guaranteed wins in cyprus and gibraltar, and if belgium holds bosnia it will be us in the second place..we also have a game vs gibraltar where we'll score more than 6 goals if needed in the last matchday..we'll be on par with many other teams at that time and we'll have the opprtunity to smash gibraltar and beat our opposition to goal difference. most of the groups are not done yet, and there are more difficult games than you might think..

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We s%$#! the bed against Estonia. Those 2pts missed are going to come back to haunt us. 

I believe we will get 2nd. No way Bosnia beat Belgium. but with the way they do the 2nd place most likely we will end up as worst. The only hope we have is group D. Depending on their games today.

theres 9 groups but 8 groups have 6 teams. Means that the results against the last place team won't count. So we could smash 30 goals against Gilbratar and it wouldn't matter.  

At the moment we would be the worst 2nd and no playoffs. Estonia was a big screw up. Those 2 pts damn.

 

Cyprus also won't be easy. We need the 3 pts plus as much goals as possible.

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@Torontoblue 

That's what I was confused about I thought the result against Gibraltar wouldn't matter. Does that mean all 8 teams the results don't count against the last place teams? In points and the amount of goals scored? So for example if Greece beat Gilbrator then we minus the 6 points from our two wins against them plus minus the goals we scored? Still a little confused about how that works.

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20 minutes ago, J1078 said:

@Torontoblue 

That's what I was confused about I thought the result against Gibraltar wouldn't matter. Does that mean all 8 teams the results don't count against the last place teams? In points and the amount of goals scored? So for example if Greece beat Gilbrator then we minus the 6 points from our two wins against them plus minus the goals we scored? Still a little confused about how that works.

except the last group. Group I has only 5 teams so it won't affect them.

this system is in place because of groups with only 5 teams. Wouldn't be fair to them.  

The rest of the groups the results against the 6th place team won't count. 

Gilbraltar won't matter( but still have to win of coure?)Cyprus is the one that counts especially on the goals scored. 

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