Rock-solid Greece face Romania this evening in the first leg of the 2014 World Cup qualifying play-offs looking to create an advantage before Tuesday’s return match in Bucarest.
And given the team’s impressive defensive record of late, nobody is surprised that boss Fernando Santos is looking to pay special attention to the defensive phase of the game in the Romania clash.
“The team made history at Euro 2004 by concentrating on the defensive side of the game. An identity like that is not easy to change,” Santos told FIFA.com.
“We’ve tried to play a different way, by pressing more and being a little more aggressive, but really we only managed to change at certain times.
“Then we slipped back into our comfort zone, our defensive strength. It has its advantages, because we concede very few goals, but obviously it makes things more difficult when we try and attack.”
Given that Ethniki haven’t conceded a single goal in last six fixtures, there is a big value in backing the trend to continue at 1/1. Meanwhile, they are the same price to emerge victorious in the first leg and 2/3 to qualify for the World Cup.
The hosts will be without regular starter Kyriakos Papadopoulos, but important attacker Georgios Samaras is fit enough to take his place in the starting line-up.
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