Greece’s agonising wait to qualify for a major tournament will go on for at least another few years after Denmark handed them a crushing defeat to bring their World Cup hopes to an end.

The “Ethniki” suffered a 3-1 away defeat against the Danes in their fourth game of the World Cup qualifiers, with the result mathematically eliminating them from making the tournament.

The Greeks were their own worst enemy as two errors at the back contributed heavily as they fell three goals behind by half time.

The first goal arrived in the 21st minute when Christos Zafeiris delivered a disastrous backpass that was intercepted by striker Rasmus Hojlund and flicked into the bottom left.

The hosts doubled their advantage via a Joachim Andersen corner header (40′) and they made it three a minute later after Konstantinos Koulierakis produced another horrible pass in the box, which eventually saw Mikkel Damsgaard bury the ball into the net.

Greece showed some resistance in the second half with Christos Tzolis finding the back of the net in the 63rd minute, though it proved to be a consolation as they resigned themselves to their third straight defeat in the qualifying campaign.

The “Ethniki” remains one three points earned from their four games with Scotland and Denmark above with ten and Belarus in last with no points.

The squad were dejected after the loss, lamenting the mistakes in critical moments that cost them dearly in their last few games.

“That’s where we need to focus, see what we need to improve, change to pursue our next goals, helping the younger players,” said Giorgos Masouras to ALPHA.

The experienced winger stressed his belief that they should trust the process being driven by coach Ivan Jovanovic.

“We have to keep this momentum going, it’s become a cliché, but we have to,” he said.

We also need to keep the coach’s methodical approach. And everyone needs to critique themselves and come back stronger for the next challenges, to push this effort a little further and with greater responsibility for what is at stake.”

Konstantinos Mavropanos expressed his view that the team has performed much better than the results suggest, while adding he is still optimistic about the team’s chances of making major tournaments in the future.

“From what we saw today and in the previous game, we did ourselves an injustice, so after these games, I believe that the team will have more experience, especially against teams like Denmark, for example, because there are more difficult games ahead,” he said to media.

“I believe we have a lot of hope for the future with so much talent and so much work that we have and put into our daily lives, so it’s just a matter of time.”