Greece finally sees out UNL group win

Greece finally sees out UNL group win

By Greg Gavalas

It’s taken a few attempts, but the Ethniki Omada is now official winners of their League C group in the UEFA Nations League under the guidance of Gus Poyet.

Five wins and one defeat are decent reading given the struggles of before, with the last two games against Cyprus away and Northern Ireland in Athens leaving Poyet with plenty to consider.

Squad selections done we saw a familiar backline in the Larnaka Arena with a midfield combination of Manolis Siopis, Dimitris Kourbelis and Tassos Bakasetas in front of them.

The front three saw Tassos Douvikas up front with Yiannis Masouras on the right and Dimitris Pelkas on the left as we accommodate the loss of Dimitris Limnios at right wing who gives us a punch in attack we can’t seem to replace.

The Ethniki started well and looked in complete control of the match, in fact Douvikas should have given Greece an early lead but his poor form with the Ethniki was there to see as he missed a header from three yards out of an empty goal.

From the 17th minute mark though, Greek fans would endure some horrid football until the 55th min in the Northern Ireland game.

Cyprus midfielder Giorgos Kastanos opened the Greek defense with a lovely ball to Marinos Tzionis who placed passed Odysseas Vlahodimos in what would be the winner for the island cousins.

The issue for Greece was highlighted as they chased the match, Pelkas provided little to no effectiveness or threat on the left, Masouras tried but with such a slow build up play in the Greek midfield, its hard for his type of player to penetrate.

Andreas Bouchalakis was brought in a half time to replace a carded Siopis and the Olympiakos mans lack of playing time was obvious as many passes went astray, the slow build up play also made Bakasetas almost invisible as he simple is not a mobile or speedy type of player.

The few shinning lights were Fotis Ioannidis who provided much more energy and presence than Douvikas and Taxiarchis Founds who provided speed and an eye of goal, he had an excellent volley that they Cypriot keeper could only parry onto the cross bar and should have had his first goal for the Ethniki but of course video referee and his rule book got it wrong and disallowed the goal.

This pattern of a lacking attack carried through to the Northern Ireland game, the only changes saw Petros Mantalos replace Siopis and Ioannidis got the start of Douvikas, the latter’s Ethniki form certainly not worthy of a start.

It was 55 minutes of frustrating football, slow build up, or if we attacked with speed we would eventually pass out wide but the chemistry or combinations were not there, Greece would then pass to a player in a hopeless position and we then find ourselves passing back to the defense and goalkeeper and go on repeat.

Despite his goal in the 14th minute, I feel Pelkas offers very little out wide and he is missing way too many easy goals, in a nutshell and this may be harsh, he represents the 2015-2020 generation of Ethniki players, little substance and missing goal chances this team cannot afford to miss.

Truth be told I was hoping Ioannidis did a little more, even in terms of holding up the ball for the midfield to get involved and take some shots at goal when he could.

Kourbelis deserves praise for doing so much of the hard work in this game and busting a gut in doing so, I also think it’s worth mentioning Masouras in that breath too because as I was looking to throw my coffee on the TV from the dire football I was watching our team play, great lead up work from Mantalos and Bakasetas lead to his goal in the 55th minute and we the started to play some wonderful football which I can tell you, the eyes of us Aussies getting up a 445am to watch this needed!

Our football started to flow and with the inclusion of Foundas over Pelkas on the left we had both sides pumping forward with great energy and some good combos.

To my earlier point, whilst this is happening, Masouras is running his legs off back in defense too and denying corners, so whilst some people criticize him for a lack of finishing, you must appreciate the allrounder he is and with a moving midfield this type of player is needed on this team.

Foundas I also thought was much more effective on the left and come the friendlies in November, I really want to see him given a run there over Pelkas.

I thought with the issues identified in midfield this was a great opportunity to give Sotirios Alexandropoulos, Giannis Papanikolaou and Giorgos Kyriakopoulos a decent run, for me Alexandropoulos is an upgrade to Bouchalakis now and Kyriakopoulos is now playing at left midfield in the Serie A for Sassuolo and he has been good there.

The defense looked sloppy at times and against better opposition we need the back four to be at a better level, both goals conceded were cheap.

The last couple of match days in the Nations League saw many varied results for qualified teams, it was good to see the Ethniki finally win a group after two failed campaigns under John Van’t Ship and now, as we wait for the Euro 2024 draw we can have some peace of mind that if we fail, we will have a second chance to play off for a spot in the tournament.

It’s clear Poyet wants a constant eleven so I really hope, for the best chance to qualify, and we need to qualify given it will be ten years since the 2014 World Cup, that he saw our strengths and weaknesses with the 11 he produced in these two games, he did acknowledge this in the post-match conference after the Northern Ireland game so that gives me some confidence.

Hellas Football