The newly formed UEFA Nations League hopes to open new ground for European football by offering real purpose for teams and players in place of the ‘friendly matches’ which offered little motivation.
Teams in the new tournament will be given an extra opportunity to seek qualification for the finals of the European Championship, as there will be four positions up for grabs.
The 55 participating teams are split into four “leagues” (depending on their position on the UEFA rankings), each league containing four groups.
After the games in all groups are completed, the teams that finish in the top spots of each respective group are automatically promoted to a league above (with the exception of those in league A), while those that finish last are relegated to a league below (with the exception of those in league D).
In addition, the four teams that finish top of their group within each league will enter a play-off round, with the four teams that come away as winners of these play-offs sealing qualification to the European Championship finals.
Greece is participating in group 2 of league C, alongside Estonia, Hungary and Finland.
The Greek team will face Estonia on Sunday in Tallinn and will then travel to Budapest to face Hungary on Wednesday.
National team coach Michael Skibbe pointed out that his team is prepared for this competition and will do whatever they can in order to advance to league B and claim one of the four available tickets to EURO 2020.
Meanwhile, apart from Kyriakos Papadopoulos, who has been out of action for some time, the Greek coach is satisfied with all his players looking fully fit. Mitroglou has experienced some minor annoyances but nothing severe enough to keep him out of action, and Carlos Zeca and Michalis Mpakakis were able to make it through the entire training regimen on Wednesday.