Only Greece Could Make A Group This Easy, That Difficult…

It is, on paper at least, the easiest World Cup Qualifying Group in Europe and perhaps world football, not counting the rather farcical system New Zealand need to go through in Oceania.

Greece though have retained an incredibly frustrating ability though to turn the most promising of situations into a nightmare, somehow contriving to allow Moldova to sneak a late equalizer against them in Chisinau, following disastrous back-to-back losses against an extremely ordinary Switzerland.

Even with ten men in Basel the Greeks largely outplayed their opponents, though credit must go to Ottmar Hitzfeld’s men for recovering from what should have been a decisive home loss to minnows Luxembourg and beating Greece in Athens.

That match – and not the respective red card and last-gasp catastrophes in Switzerland and Moldova – will be considered the turning point of Greece’s qualifying campaign if they look back upon it without having booked a place in South Africa.

Questions will be asked of Otto Rehhagel’s tactics over the past week, though in truth there is no deficiency in his system as a whole, where he simply works with the resources he has.

His odd decision to replace Ioannis Amanatidis with the oft-indifferent Theofanis Gekas in Basel might have seemed innocuous at the time but it has changed the balance of this group; immediately upon his entry into the game he lost the ball, leading to Switzerland’s goal.

These are the fine margins upon which teams qualify for World Cups and on this occasion, Rehhagel totally misjudged the situation – inexcusable for such an experienced manager who knows his squad inside out.

For now though, six points must be the one and only objective from two winnable home games against Latvia and Luxembourg, which will decide whether Greece at least secure a chance for themselves at a first World Cup appearance since 1994 with a play-off.

From facing Luxembourg and Moldova they might now need to earn their passage with clashes against the likes of France or Portugal – and they only have themselves to blame.