Greece recover from defeat in Sarajevo
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Article summary
Greece recovered from an opening defeat by Bosnia-Herzegovina to win their next two games and reach the Elite round ahead of their early conquerors in Group 10.
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Having lost 2-1 to the qualifying round Group 10 hosts in Sarajevo, Greece – aiming to reach their third consecutive U19 finals – went on to defeat Montenegro 1-0 and Poland 2-0 in their subsequent games. Bosnia-Herzegovina drew with both sides to finish second behind Greece, one point ahead of Poland.
Opening day
Bosnia-Herzegovina were two up at the break against Greece on Matchday 1 following a Haris Handžić penalty and Ermin Gadžo strike and, although Kyriakos Papadopoulos pulled one back, the home side held on. Poland scored on the stroke of half-time against Montenegro through Mikołaj Zwoliński and, despite Łukasz Olbrich's own goal seconds after the interval that levelled matters, Michał Kucharczyk ensured a 2-1 win.
Poland comeback
Montenegro suffered another narrow defeat two days later, Nikolaos Karelis securing a 1-0 victory for Greece after 65 minutes. Bosnia-Herzegovina made the perfect start against Poland with a Handžić goal on 13 minutes and the same player converted another penalty midway through the second half. Alan Stulin immediately equalised from a spot-kick and with 14 minutes remaining Tomasz Hołota earned a 2-2 draw.
Home relief
Poland now only needed a point against Greece to finish in the top two but Savas Gentzoglou struck with 17 minutes left and with time running out another of the five remaining players from last season's finals squad, Lefteris Matsoukas, made it 2-0. Bosnia-Herzegovina could have missed out if they had lost to Montenegro but held out for a goalless draw that secured progress.