Greece will host France in the UEFA EURO 2024 10th qualification round of Group B match at the Opap Arena located in Athens. The fixture will take place on Wednesday, November 22, beginning at 01:15 IST.
Parimatch News will tell you everything you need to know ahead of the upcoming match.
Greece News & Current Form:
There is no intrigue left in Group B, as all the national teams already know on which positions they will finish qualification. France have advanced to the final stage of Euro 2024 from the first place, while Greece have already lost their chances to qualify for the tournament in Germany. Even in case of a win Greece will not be able to beat the Netherlands, who are 3 points ahead and have won both face-to-face meetings.
The Greek national team had a normal start in qualifying for the European Championships, but now they are out of chances to get there. The Whites managed to beat Gibraltar twice (3:0 and 5:0) and Ireland (2:1 and 2:0), but lost to the Netherlands (0:3 and 0:1) and France (0:1), the author of the only goal was Kylian Mbappe, who scored on 55 minutes from the penalty spot.
Last time Greece defeated France was in the quarterfinals of EURO 2004. Since then, the French have gotten much better, while the Greeks have dropped from 14th to 51st position in the FIFA rankings.
As a result, the Pirate Ship now has twelve points and is in third place in the standings and will not be able to climb higher. Greece managed to hit the opponent’s goal twelve times and conceded six times.
Coach of the Greek team Gustavo Poyet got a red card during the previous game, so he will miss the clash with France
The Greek national team did not take part in the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, but played friendlies. It shared points with Malta (2:2) and also lost to Hungary (1:2). In 2023, the Greek team also failed to identify a winner in a match against Lithuania (0:0).
Last year, Gustavo Poyet’s charges participated in the UEFA Nations League. The Sky Blues played in League C and managed to move up to League B, finishing higher in the standings than the national teams of Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Cyprus.
Greece recently played a friendly match against New Zealand. The home match ended in a 2:0 victory, with both goals scored in the first half. Giannis Konstantelias scored in the 10th minute and Giorgos Giakoumakis followed in the 29th minute.
In the last game of qualification, which took place back in October, Greece lost at home to the Netherlands, and it was this defeat that deprived the team of chances for second place in the group.
But it’s too early for Poyet’s men to be discouraged. Greece will still have a chance to qualify for the 2024 European Championship through the Nations League, which means the team must continue to fight, especially as they play their final game of the group stage at home.
The main trump card of the Pirate Ship is a very coherent game in defense. Only in 2 of the last 21 matches in all official tournaments they conceded more than one goal, against Sweden (0:2) and the Netherlands (0:3), in both cases, the Greeks played away.
The defenders of West Ham United FC and Liverpool FC Konstantinos Mavropanos and Konstantinos Tsimikas, as well as Nottingham Forest FC goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos deserve special praise. They rarely get playing time at clubs, but in the national team they are permanent leaders.
However, the absence of two core players Petros Mantalos and Dimitris Kourbelis, who were disqualified, is frightening. In addition, in the last qualification game, Greece’s head coach Gustavo Poyet received a red card, so he will be absent from the game.
France News & Current Form:
The French national team has confidently qualified for the European forum and has made ahead of schedule. It now has 21 points from a possible 21 and leads its group in the standings.
The Tricolored can join the Portuguese in having a chance to finish the qualifying cycle exclusively with victories. The team’s last defeat was on the 12th of September in a friendly against Germany (1:2). At the last two training camps, Didier Deschamps’ team played only one official match each.
In September, it defeated Ireland at home (2:0), and in December, it broke the resistance of the Netherlands (2:1). In the last qualification game, France defeated Gibraltar with a shocking score of 14:0 and set several records. The team became the first national team in UEFA to score 14 goals in one match since 1967. The Equipe de France also set a personal performance record, for Gibraltar this defeat was the biggest in history.
The start of the showdown was an auto goal by Ethan Santos on 3 minutes. Fifteen minutes after this minutes he received a red card, but already at the score 0:3. Kylian Mbappe scored a hat-trick, Olivier Giroud and Kingsley Coman scored a double.
17-year-old Warren Zaire-Emery scored his debut goal for France, he became the youngest author of a goal for the French national team in 109 years. Marcus Thuram, Jonathan Clauss, Youssouf Fofana, Adrien Rabiot and Ousmane Dembele scored another goal each.
The youngest scorer of the French national team in 109 years – Warren Zaire-Emery
There were also two wins over the Netherlands (4:0 and 2:1), Ireland (1:0 and 2:0) and Gibraltar (3:0), as well as one win over Greece (1:0). In total, the French managed to hit the opponent’s goal 27 times, the second result among all teams. The leader in terms of performance was Portugal with 34 goals on their account. But Deschamps’ wards conceded only one goal.
Speaking of other international competitions, France managed to reach the final at the Qatar World Cup in 2022. First, the main team of France confidently passed the group stage, and after that the wards of Didier Deschamps beat Poland (3:1) and England (2:1) at the playoff stage. In the semifinals, the French confidently dealt with Morocco (2:0), but in the final in a penalty shootout lost to Argentina (3:3, on penalties 2:4).
When talking about injuries, in the match against Gibraltar Warren Zaire-Emery was injured, he will be out for the rest of the year. The most productive player in the team is Kylian Mbappe with 9+5 on goal+pass system. The striker broke the records of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi by scoring 300 goals before his 25th birthday.
Interestingly, shortly before the game with Gibraltar Kilian had been criticized by Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique. After the defeat in the last round of Ligue 1 with Reims (3:0), he publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the player, this is despite the fact that Kylian made a hat-trick.
Nevertheless, Mbappe took the criticism correctly, it seems like it only gave the forward additional motivation. Didier Deschamps joked about Luis Enrique after the game with Gibraltar, he said with a smile that he expected more from the striker, thus spoofing the PSG coach.
Greece form guide: L-L-W-W-L-W
France form guide: W-W-L-W-W-W
Greece vs France Head-To-Head Record:
| Greece | Draw | France |
| 1 | 1 | 11 |
- June 25, 2004: France 0 – 1 Greece (UEFA EURO);
- November 15, 2006: France 1 – 0 Greece (International Friendly);
- June 19, 2023: France 1 – 0 Greece (UEFA EURO).
Greece vs France Predicted XI:
Greece’s possible starting lineup (4-3-3): Vlachodimos; Baldock, Mavropanos, Retsos, Tsimikas; Bakasetas, Bouchalakis, Pelkas; Konstantelias, Giakoumakis, Masouras.
France’s possible starting lineup (4-2-3-1): Samba; Kounde, Saliba, Disasi, L. Hernandez; Fofana, Rabiot; Dembele, Griezmann, Mbappe; Kolo Muani.
Statistical preview of the match Greece vs France:
- In the FIFA ranking of the world’s national teams the French team occupies 2nd position, while the collective from Greece is 50 positions lower, on the 51st.
- Greece’s First XI average age is 28.2 years, France’s First XI average age is 26.7 years.
- Daniel Siebert has been appointed as the center referee. The referee has already served sixteen games this season, showing an average of 4.5 Yellow Cards and also whistles 24.88 fouls per game.
- France are conceding an average of 0.80 goals per game in their last 5 games and scoring an average of 4.60 goals per game.
- In the last 5 games Greece are conceding an average of 0.80 goals per game and scoring an average of 1.80 goals per game.
- The most productive players of the Greek team in the qualifying for Euro 2024: Giorgos Masouras (5+0), Anastasios Bakasetas (2+2).
- Greece have not lost in 8 out of 9 home matches.
- Greece have not drawn in 10 qualification matches: 7 wins and 3 draws.
- France have won all their qualification matches.
- France have scored more than a goal in 7 out of 9 qualifying matches.
- The Greek team at their home stadium earns 9.4 corner kicks per game, while the French national team serves 5.25 corner kicks per match.
- The Greek team at home receives an average of 2 yellow cards per match, and the French team away earns 0.75 yellow cards per match.
What has been said before the match:
Didier Deschamps after watching his team win 14-0:
“Being down to 10, already with 11 it’s complicated for them, but it doesn’t take away the credit for us even if we could have been more efficient, it’s as much about respecting the opponent as scoring goals,” France coach Didier Deschamps said. “Fourteen is not bad.”
“We’re going to enjoy what we did tonight, we’re not going to Greece to go for a ride. It’s a new goal. Tonight was a perfect night aside from Warren’s injury, but it’s not a big deal, it could have been worse.”
Adrien Rabiot about winning the upcoming match:
“I am motivated by the idea of winning a match. I think it’s the same for my team-mates. We have challenges together, like finishing with the maximum number of points. If we win and do better than Argentina, we will finish the year first in the FIFA rankings. These are small goals that we have in mind.”
Olivier Giroud commented on the courage of team from Gibraltar:
“It’s a perfect evening. The coach told us that we had to have fun this evening while remaining serious and giving our all. At half-time, he told us that we had done things very well. It was not easy to continue with the same dynamic in the second half and push as we did but we wanted to get this record.”
“This Gibraltar team was courageous and unfortunately being reduced to ten against eleven, it was even harder. The dedication when I scored? It was to celebrate my youngest’s birthday, 3 years old today! At that time, she is asleep but she will watch the replay!”
Greece vs France Prediction:
Greece are looking to slam the door on the last round of Euro 2024 qualifying against France. And they might be able to do it, France have no tournament motivation and the result of the match is practically inconsequential to them, if perfectionism is put aside. Didier Deschamps may give the reserves a chance, but a pragmatic approach is not going anywhere, and therefore we should not expect a half-hearted performance.
The French have a terrific record of winning all their matches, having scored 27 goals and conceding only once In the whole cycle. In the last round, Gibraltar was thrashed 14:0. The Blues would like to finish the qualifying with a 100% win rate for sure, but this is merely a bonus, and there’s no point in risking anything, especially if we talk about essential players.
The Greeks are showing generally decent football, but it still wasn’t enough to overpower the Netherlands, who are likely to cement their second place in the 8th tour match against the Group B outsider with GD -35. Nevertheless, the home field factor will help the Sky Blues and Whites, despite their non-qualification they can save face by at least drawing with such a monstrous opponent. The Pirate Ship often shows very disciplined defensive play. Despite the massive difference in class, in the first match Tricolors managed to beat them by the smallest margin (1:0). Most likely, the upcoming meeting will end in a similar pattern. The game will be played on a counter course. Both teams will have plenty of chances, as there is nothing to lose. At the same time, the French, being the main contenders to win the Euros, are unlikely to lose.
Parimatch News staff prediction:
We say: France will not lose and the individual total of Greece will be over 0.5 – Yes.
Don`t miss out 👉: Manvir Singh’s goal powers India to a 1-0 win over Kuwait away from home