Greekoz

That starting 11 was a joke. Whats the point of using players that wont be part of our next cycle? Farewell games? Did these "legends" win us a euro or take us to a major tournament to deserve an extra game? Jovanovic has ended up being a massive dissapointment.

That feels like a loss, we are nowhere near the standard required to play at major championships, that capitulation was inexcusable.

This one stings from a diaspora perspective as well, we are never going to host a wc in Australia and this was probably the last time the Americans/Canadians were going to get an opportunity after the 94 debacle. A lot of us have family over there and many would have made the trip.

My biggest concern with this group was it only being 4 teams which means you have less margin for error. We were pretty much done as soon as Denmark beat us at home. Skopia in a playoff spot still after drawing with Kazakstan at home, if we drew with Belarus at home we would have been cooked after the first game. Everyone saw our group as easy but the reality is one fxuk up and you're done.

Individual mistakes and defending set pieces is killing us, until this is fixed we wont be able to get results, we created some good opportunities and could have made things interesting but the reality is we've copped 3 goals in each of our last 3 and thats not beating anyone.

Are these players under instruction to constantly play the ball back to the keeper? I said it last game we overplay too much and it should not be our style to try and start our buildups from the goalie.

That went out the window with the 3-0 loss in Athens to England.

We are guilty of over playing as well, far too often when we have space to attack in front of us we are too patient and recycle the ball sideways and backwards. We get it the team can play attractive but games are won and lost in the 2 boxes and in those areas we simply arent up to scratch.

We arent ready this cycle, we've been massively exposed the last 2 games conceeding 6 goals, we cant defend set pieces and we are prone to massive brain fades at the back. We have a good young crop of players, its nice to watch but international football is about results and we dont have the "steel" to get the job done. The campaign is now over 3 games in and you have to say we will probably cop another 3 at Denmark even if we play well.

Giakoumakis deserved a goal worked his ass off. This game showed why all our teams are rubbish in Europe, half the game was head tennis with players just booting the ball anywhere.

We just need to stay alive in the next game, a loss and its finished 3 games in.

Yeh i'd say the 3rd we got caught out not even mentioning Tsolakis brain fade but the game was already over at that point. When the game was up for grabs we couldnt get out of our own half, thanks to sloppy play. The 2nd goal infuriated me we just completely backed off. Denmarks coaching staff would have been doing cartwheels when Karetsas got subbed out, the one player they can change the game with 1-2 touches gets taken out.

Did Denmark really counter though? They bossed the game and half the time it was our guys passing it straight to them. They're a good outfit but we made them look like a top 5 team. Now we have to tie Scotland at least to keep 2nd in play, a loss there and its pretty much done, the nations league result is irrelevant.

We will beat Belarus away and maybe draw Scotland at home, 4 more points max for this team. Pretty embarassing.

Its been a training run for Denmark. Yes we've been the architects of our own demise with our disgusting passing but taking Karetsas off when down a goal is mind boggling. 3-0 and fair score

With the WC group 1st obviously qualifies but does 2nd get a playoff spot? If its just first or nothing its still incredibly difficult as we have no magin for error. Down here in the Asian confederation Australia has only won 2 of 7 matches and is still going to qualify lol

Goal difference comes down to h2h, so if we draw against England we finish 1st no matter what. If we lose the ideal loss is 0-1 as that gives us the tiebreaker. Current goal differential will only count if we lose 2-1

To be honest i thought they had better chances. Despite willing to give us possesion they looked more threatening running at us. Vlachodimos made 2 point blank saves. The Bakasetas shot for eg isnt really a chance, we had the header and thats it, unforgiveable to create so little in 120 minutes. Im not bothered by the penalty shootout, once you reach that point you're depending on a coin flip. Our job was to win this before then and we failed. Personally i wouldnt have had Giakoumakis take a penalty, his record from the spot was very patchy at Celtic and i can recall him missing for Atlanta as well. That said you'd put your life savings on Bakasetas and he was denied.

In terms of importance arguably the worst loss in our history. We aren’t going to a WC obviously, our next semi decent chance (if that) is 8 years away. If anyone had said 2 years ago that all you had to do was beat Georgia to qualify for Euro you’d bite that persons hand off to be in that scenario and we still blew it.

Where will these playoffs be played? In the event of Kazakhstan finishing 2nd who would replace them? Ive read about the comical scenario that Ireland actually has to LOSE against the Netherlands to have a shot at the playoffs, a win would see them miss out lol.

It sucks but I don’t mind missing out on a World Cup in a dump like Qatar. I’ll be devastated if we miss out on USA/Canada 2026 though as it’s one most of us on here would be likely to attend.

We may as well forfeit now

You could see it coming. We couldnt even push up the field in the last 5 minutes, we would make a clearance and everyone would just stay on the edge of our box. Anyway we arent going anywhere.

Unfortunately that ends our campaign 2 matches in.

Was it just me or did a Marseille player give away a handball outside the box not long after the Rafinha incident and didn’t even get a yellow card even though it was more blatant? As for the 2nd penalty, why isn’t the ref going to the monitor to see for himself? How is it even a clear and obvious error for it to be overturned? El Arabi got punched in the head by the Marseille keeper, could realistically be given a red card and penalty, it was called offside but it looked very close, why didn’t we get a stop in play and a trillion replays to forensically review the play and bring VAR in? VAR is an absolute crapshoot. When it comes to offside it always favour the defender even when theirs an armpit in it. Yet here a speculative shot goes in favour of the attacker and the ref doesn’t even bother to look for himself.