Things were simple, for the Greek national team. Win. “Do or die”.
The match didn’t start off well, with the Greek team suffering a loss of Panayiotis Kone, who was substituted by Andreas Samaris due to an injury. This was promptly followed by an injury of Greek goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis, who was substituted by Panayiotis Glykos.
Cholevas struck the horizontal post on the 34th minute with an amazing shot outside the box, followed by a shot by Karagounis from the foul, which ended up in the Ivory Coast keeper’s hands.
In the 42nd minute, the golden substitute, Andreas Samaris placed the ballpastthe Ivory Coast keeper, opening the score-line for Greece at 1-0!
Karagounis continued to put on a show, with a far-struck speeder of a shot that hit the horizontal post once more at the 58th minute.
This was quickly followed by Christodoulopoulos’ free kick that barely grazed the top of the bar, ending in a goal kick.
Sadly in the 74th minute Bony Wilfried, Swansea’s striker, equalized for the Ivory Coast team.
Five minutes later, Torosidis crossed the ball in, but it hit the vertical post once more, making it the third time in one night that a Greek goal has been stopped by nothing but bad luck.
In the 87th minute, Salpingidis once more reached a hair’s breadth away from a goal, but was off the mark.
But in the 93rd minute, Samaras, the hero of the Greek national team, won a penalty.He placed it to the right hand side of the keeper, giving Greece a lead 2-1 deep after the 90th minute and sending every Greek football fan to the seventh heaven!