Greece suffered its third loss in six Nations League games, on Sunday at the Athens Olympic Stadium, losing 1-0 to Estonia.
Although technically inferior to the Greek team, the Estonians showed remarkable physical ability, putting immense pressure to the home team from the beginning of the game.
The Greek team was particuarly unlucky, not having many opportunities presented to them, and as if that wasn’t enough, Vassilis Lambropoulos’ effort to to mark Rauno Sappinen in the box, after a Sergei Zenjov cross from the left, led to him sending the ball into his own net to give the Estonians an unlikely lead two minutes before half-time.
Another factor that led to Greece’s defeat was Angelos Anastasiadis’ decision to present a team featuring nine changes from the starting lineup three days earlier against Finland.
The new coach’s experiment didn’t exactly work out, since the team was clearly missing cohesion, despite its obvious energy.
Greece has finished the group on nine points from six games, at the third spot, as Estonia got relegated to Division D.
The Greeks will now have to wait for the draw of the Euro 2020 qualifiers that kick off in March 2019.