Preview ISR-GRE: Greece Seek Vital Points in Tel Aviv

August 31st, 2011 | by: nick | Comments Off

Greece will be taking on Israel in Tel Aviv on Friday in a Euro 2012 Group F qualifier. This game is one of the most crucial in the campaign so far as anything short of a win for Greece could potentially derail the campaign. Greece lead Group F with four wins and two draws including the first game between these two sides which Greece won 2-1 in Athens and friendly draws to Ecuador and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Similarly, Israel have four wins, one draw, and two losses this campaign and recently suffered friendly defeats to Serbia and Côte d’Ivoire. This puts both teams in critical positions with only a point separating them.

Squad
Coach Fernando Santos announced the squad a bit later than usual but it contained no major surprises. He does however, have a few injury concerns with Nikos Spyropoulos and Stefanos Athanasiadis. This creates a problem in defense and up front. Spyropoulos has recently emerged as the first choice left back competing with Georgos Tzavellas since Vassilios Torosidis has been switched to right back. This will put a lot of pressure on Tzavellas who debuted for Greece only a year ago and has five caps to his name. Santos has supplanted Tzavellas with Olympiacos Volou left back Giannis Zaradoukas. Meanwhile, Stefanos Athanasiadis was replaced by PAOK striker Giorgos Georgiadis. Additionally Santos did call up Germany based Thanasis Petsos, a versatile player who can play as both a defender and midfielder. Aside from these two injuries the squad is as expected. The squad can be viewed here

Formation
One of the big questions begging the Greek team is the formation Santos will use for this match. He has used various formations including a 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 4-2-3-1, and needs to settle on a formation the players can play effectively. The last qualifying matches against Malta and the friendlies against Ecuador and Bosnia-Herzagovina showed that Greece have an effective defense but a weak attack. The use of Samaras and Salpingids on the wings as has also created a drought in firepower due to the absence of a quality central forward. Kostas Mitroglu and Nikos Liberopoulos seem to be good candidates for that role but both have their short comings. The match against Bosnia-Herzagovina, witnessed the use of Ninis and Fetfatzidis on the wings of a 4-3-3 formation, this proved to be less effective as Greece could not dominate the wings.

Israel
Israel come into this match injury plagued with Ben Sahar and Elyaniv Barda ruled out. These two absences are pretty critical for Israel as they will be without two very experienced strikers. This leaves Toto Tamuz and Itay Shechter as strikers with the most caps and experience for the national team. Aside from Sahar and Barda, Israel will however benefit from the availability of an almost full strength squad including Yossi Benayoun.

Castrol Prediction: