Having been pressured to stay in League C attributable to poor efficiency, Greece had to begin its campaign on their quest to be promoted. Following group play Romania, which claimed second place over Hungary and Turkey in a group dominated by the Dutch, awaited Greece in a two-legged playoff. Costa Rica claimed its first World Cup knockout stage victory and denied Greece its first by defeating Greece 5-3 on penalties. Greece had been subsequently drawn in opposition to Croatia in the play-off spherical, where they have been knocked out over two legs; a 4-1 away defeat set the tone for Greece’s marketing campaign, and in the second leg they drew a blank in a 0-0 stalemate in opposition to the Croats to signify the end of their World Cup hopes. Dimitris Salpingidis notched the game winner in Athens, while the second leg finished 1-1 in Bucharest. Greece was drawn into Group C with Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire and Japan and in the end created an extraordinarily related tournament experience because it did two years prior at Euro 2012. Greece conceded an early purpose in their first game in opposition to Colombia, however Panagiotis Kone narrowly missed equalizing only one minute after Colombia’s fifth-minute goal.

Swansea City striker Wilfried Bony equalized for Ivory Coast within the 73rd minute. In the first minute of stoppage time, Ivory Coast striker Giovanni Sio obstructed a Samaras shot by clipping him from behind within the Ivorian penalty space, resulting in a Greece penalty kick which Samaras transformed with 30 seconds remaining in the game, prompting wild celebrations in Greece. To stave off the menace of elimination, the Greece wanted to earn not less than some extent in their second match with Japan, who sat alongside them at the bottom of Group C. The task grew more difficult as soon as captain Kostas Katsouranis received two yellow playing cards, lowering Greece to 10 men within the 38th minute. The despondent Romanian facet failed to attain on this match, with Florin Andone placing the put up in the 76th minute. An early injury to midfielder Panagiotis Kone introduced on younger Olympiacos midfielder Andreas Samaris, who would rating his first worldwide objective after intercepting a poor again-go by an Ivorian defender. The last time the 2 sides met in late 2011, Romania came into Greece and dealt Fernando Santos his first defeat as Greece manager in his 18th game on the helm.

Greece needed a win within the final recreation in opposition to Slovenia at residence to attain promotion to League B. The match ended on 0-0, with Greece failing to advertise a second consecutive time, regardless of being unbeaten and having conceded only one goal. Greece reversed the prior 3-1 consequence in their favour this time, scoring each aim via skillful one-contact passing and finishing. In Could 2016, the CAS present in Gibraltar’s favour and ordered that FIFA put Gibraltar ahead for FIFA membership, which would permit Gibraltar to participate in the qualifiers if membership was granted. They subsequently were put into the Group B for the Euro 2024 qualifiers together with the Netherlands, France, the Republic of Eire, and Gibraltar. The Galanolefki secured promotion to League B by topping the group ahead of Kosovo, Northern Eire, and Cyprus. In earlier years only these nations belonging to the first Class of European ladies’s soccer were in a position to qualify, with a system approximating promotion and relegation between qualification tournaments operating. Greece gained and misplaced three games each to those opponents altogether, and only finished third within the Nations League and was unable to advertise to League B when the UEFA revised the format. In the final three games Greece achieved successive victories.

Greece’s qualification campaign for UEFA Euro 2020 commenced with the workforce being positioned in Group J. Resulting from disappointing results, John van ‘t Schip determined to not name-up a number of the leading members of the squad, maillot france euro 2024 equivalent to Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kostas Manolas for their last matches. Trailing 1-0 but handed a bonus by the dismissal of Costa Rican Óscar Duarte, Greece pressured further time by way of a Sokratis Papastathopoulos equalizer ten seconds into stoppage time. Navas thwarted a number of opportunities for Greece all through the 30 minutes of extra time and saved Fanis Gekas’ penalty in the game’s concluding penalty shootout. Trailing 2-zero in the 63rd minute, Fanis Gekas’ header from six yards struck the crossbar for Greece’s best probability of the match. A 2-1 house win over Sweden kept the hopes for qualification alive, and was followed by a 2-zero away win towards Georgia. However after missing a number of chances, England found themselves behind after 20 minutes of play when Germany scored of their very first assault (Birgit Prinz), and immediately scored a second-a protracted-vary shot from Melanie Behringer to go 2-zero up. As Group C runners-up Greece was paired within the round of 16 with Group D shock winners Costa Rica, who received their first-ever World Cup group stage forward of former world champions Uruguay, Italy and England.