Perfection In Piraeus

From Goal.com

Greece maintained their perfect start to World Cup Qualification with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Moldova at the Giorgios Karaiskakis Stadium on Saturday evening.

A sharp double by Angelos Charisteas and a superb long-range Konstantinos Katsouranis strike allowed Greece to ease comfortably to their third win in as many matches, after securing two victories away against Luxembourg and Latvia in September.

Moldova, who were unlucky to emerge out of the same month without a point to show for their efforts after narrow losses to Latvia and Israel, offered little resistance to Otto Rehhagel’s men in Piraeus.

First-Half

The Greeks laboured through the opening part of the match, stroking the ball around fairly comfortably but without posing a threat to Nicolai Calancea’s goal.

Theofanis Gekas had a decent chance to open the scoring after 19’ minutes of play however, when Celtic striker Giorgios Samaras swung a low cross into the area from the left. Calancea only pushed the ball to Gekas, whose initial attempt was blocked by Epureanu before the Bayer Leverkusen striker blasted the ball over the crossbar.

Angelos Basinas – who captained the side after having started on the bench against Latvia in September – then saw his low strike from outside the area comfortably saved by the ‘keeper, after Samaras had laid the ball off to the AEK Athens midfielder.

It took just over half-an-hour for Greece to open the scoring, after Angelos Charisteas won a free-kick for his side just outside the Moldova penalty area.

The FC Nuremberg striker – who etched himself into Greek football folk-lore with his winning goal in the final of Euro 2004 – had scored in Greece’s Matchday 1 victory over Luxembourg with a penalty and this time finished a clever but simple set-piece move.

Instead of electing to shoot, Katsouranis played a simple pass to his unmarked team-mate on the edge of the wall, from where he slid the ball under Calancea to give the former European champions a 1-0 lead on 31’ minutes.

The Benfica midfielder then turned finisher of a neat passing move nine minutes later, after having the ball laid off to him by Gekas.

The former AEK man produced a stunning first-time shot from long-range that squeezed into the top left-hand corner of the goal, with Calancea helpless.

Second-Half

The Greeks extended their lead only six minutes into the second-half, when Charisteas grabbed his second goal of the evening after capitalizing on a mistake by Rebeja. The striker entered the penalty area before opening his body and sliding the ball neatly past the ‘keeper into the far corner of the net.

In what was an otherwise sedate second forty-five minutes, the former Ajax player missed the chance to secure a hat-trick on 62’ minutes, when he slid the ball past the same post when played through on goal by the industrious Katsouranis, as Greece held on to record an unspectacular but professional victory.

The Greeks remain first in Group 2 and will now prepare to host Switzerland on Wednesday. Moldova, meanwhile, are last, without a point to their name and will have travel to Luxembourg.

Greece 3 (Charisteas 31’, 51’, Katsouranis 40’)
Moldova 0

Line-ups:

Greece: Chalkias, Dellas, Papadopoulos, Kyrgiakos, Katsouranis (72’ Patsatzoglou), Basinas, Torosidis, Seitaridis, Gekas (46’ Salpiggidis), Charisteas, Samaras (71’ Amanatidis)

Moldova: Calancea, Armas, Epureanu, Rebeja, Corneencov (79’ Andronic), Cebotaru, Bordian, Alexeev (46’ Picusciac), Bugaiov (67’ Suvorov), Savinov, Tigirlas