Last Sunday, Greek international Giorgos Tzavelas became the Greek hero of the night when he saved his country from a home defeat with virtually the last kick of the match. His spectacular 20-metre left foot volley flew past Bosnian keeper Asmir Begovic and salvaged a point for Greece against an impressive Bosnia Herzegovnia in a tense World Cup qualifier in Giorgios Kataiskakis Stadium in Piraeus last Sunday.

After a cautious opening from both teams, the visitors took the game to the home team and were eventually rewarded with some good fortune when a skilfully struck free kick from dead ball specialist Miralem Pjanic struck the left upright and rebounded onto the back of a diving Greek keeper Orestis Karnezis and into the net for the opening goal on 30 minutes.

The visitors continued to threaten the Greek side, although Greece’s centre forward Kostas Mitroglou had a great chance to equalise on the stroke of half time, but was foiled by keeper Begovic’s smart save.

Begovic produced an even better save in the second half to deflect a goal-bound Kostas Fortounis drive onto the woodwork. But the Bosnians still threatened, with danger-man Edin Dzeko forcing two fine saves from Karnezis in the second half. A flare-up late in the second half resulted in Dzeko and Greek defender Kyriakos Papadopoulos receiving their marching orders with ten minutes remaining.

Deep into injury time and with time fast running out for Greece, Tzavelas connected first time from a rebound, firing home a remarkable equaliser to preserve Greece’s unbeaten start to the World Cup qualifying campaign.

The result keeps Greece in second place behind the powerful Belgium team, and maintains its three point lead ahead of Bosnia, the team it is tipped to battle with for second place in the group.

Greece’s next match in the qualifying campaign is in March against group leader Belgium, which maintained its dominant form in the group with an 8-1 crushing of Estonia.

Elsewhere in the same group, Cyprus won its first match of the qualifying series when it defeated Gibraltar 3-1 at home. Hosting a team which had never scored an away goal in internationals, the Cypriots, as expected, opened the scoring when Laifis scored in the 27th minute. However in the 51st minute, Gibraltar created history by scoring its first ever away goal though Cascairo, although it soon found itself behind again to the Cypriots through poor defending which allowed Sotiriou to restore the home team’s advantage in the 65th. This was followed by an 87th minute Sielis header which sealed the first points in the qualifying rounds for the Cypriots.

Cyprus sits in fourth place in Group H, equal with Estonia which it plays in March.