The Greek National Football Team was held to a 1-1 draw with Belgium in a Euro 2012 warm-up friendly at the Pankritio Stadium in Heraklion on Wednesday.
Fernando Santos’ side, who qualified for the finals in Poland and Ukraine as Group F winners, took an early lead through Dimitris Salpigidis after a defensive mix-up, but Belgium levelled through Nacer Chadli’s header.
Belgium, who failed to qualify for the tournament, looked the livelier side in a closely-contested match, but neither looked like winning the game in a second-half interrupted by the customary flurry of substitutions.
Greece made a confident start and were ahead after nine minutes thanks to a slice of good fortune.
Belgium left-back Nicolas Lombaerts’ misjudged back-pass was picked up by Fanis Gekas, and just when it seemed the chance had gone, as the Greek striker tried to slip the ball past on-rushing goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, defender Thomas Vermaelen slipped and allowed Salpigidis to prod the ball home from close range.
Belgium were impressive in midfield with Axel Witsel and Eden Hazard showing some neat touches, and the visitors drew level on 32 minutes from a corner. Hazard’s right wing flag-kick was flicked on by defender Vincent Kompany and Chadli scored with a diving header at the back post. Vermaelen passed up the chance to make it 2-1 when he clipped a shot wide after being put through on goal three minutes later. Such goalmouth action was sparse in the second half.
For Greece, there were debuts for 26-year-old Panathinaikos goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis and 19-year-old Kaiserslautern midfielder Kostas Fortounis as Santos experimented with his squad.
Slovenia will provide the next opponents for Greece on May 26 before a match against Armenia five days later. They will kick off Euro 2012 campaign in Warsaw against co-hosts Poland before playing the Czech Republic and Russia in Group A.
