Preliminary Qualifying
Greece vs Denmark (In Karaiskaki Stadium capacity 40.000)
The European Cup holders will face the hardworking team of Denmark in a match that has been named as "final" especially for the Greeks. Greece needs the 3 pointer in order to stay close to group leader Ukraine...
1. Ukraine 5 3 2 0 9-3 11
2. Denmark 4 1 3 0 6-4 6
3. Turkey 5 1 3 1 6-5 6
4. Albania 4 2 0 2 3-5 6
5. Greece 4 1 2 1 5-4 5
6. Georgia 4 1 2 1 5-5 5
7. Kazakhstan 4 0 0 4 2-10 0
Coach Otto Rehagel said "im very satisfied by the so far performance of the internationals in their teams. If we want to win we have to avoid making the same mistakes as in Albania (2-1L). A win by 1-0 will be enough for me".
The German coach will have to deal with the absence of regular defender Kapsis and reserve attacker Papadopoulos. Most likely Kyrgiakos will substitute Kapsis in the first eleven. Denmark's coach Morten Olsen has more significant injuries to cope with. Valuable attacker Jesper Gronjaer (Atl. Madrid) is out as well as Aston Villa's defender Martin Laursen but also captain Thomas Helveg and Thomas Rasmusen. Finally Ebbe Sand (the star of Shalke) is not going to play since he is retired from the international team. Nevertheless the most serious problem for Danish coach is the long absence of most of the players from the fields since the Danish league is on a break for almost 2 months now.
Probable formations:
Greece: Nikopolidis, Seitaridis, Fyssas, Dellas, Kyrgiakos, Katsouranis, Karagounis(Mpasinas), Zagorakis, Giannakopoulos, Vryzas, Charisteas
Denmark: Sorensen, Jansen, Prisken, Croldrup, Lustu, Poulsen, Gravesend, Jensen, Rommendahl, Perez, Tomasson
IMO three very significant factors will decide the game. Firstly Denmark does not have the depth in the bench to replace the missing players. Secondly half of the Danish players have not played competitive football since November. Finally the this is a "win or die match" for the Greeks. Thus i choose the home win for 2.20 with extremely high confidence.
GL to you and the Greeks!