Prediction Euro Champ Qualifying - Georgia vs Greece

Euro Champ Qualifying - Georgia vs Greece
Match Time: 27-03-2024 01:00 Wednesday (GMT+8)
Football Livescore | Match Prediction & Tips
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Georgia

As Napoli wing wizard Khvicha Kvaratskhelia took his place on the naughty step for Georgia's semi-final with Luxembourg, which he was unavailable for due to suspension, the Crusaders' visitors may have arrived in Tbilisi with quiet optimism of leaving the home crowd crestfallen.

However, Karlsruher SC striker Budu Zivzivadze made himself the hero in Kvaratskhelia's absence on Thursday, netting either side of the half-time whistle to sink the 10 men of Luxembourg, whose hopes of a second-half turnaround evaporated when Maxime Chanot was given his marching orders.

By prolonging Luxembourg's wait for a major tournament debut, Georgia need only pick up one more victory to achieve that elusive feat and complete Euro 2024 Group F, where Portugal, Turkey and the Czech Republic will be waiting to welcome them.

Boarding the plane to Germany would see Georgia hit new heights in their meteoric rise from the ashes, having also shot up from the fourth to the second tier of the Nations League since the tournament's inauguration in 2018, although a 10-2 aggregate loss to Spain in Euros qualifying was certainly a rude awakening.

However, the 3-1 defeat to La Roja in September represents the Crusaders' only reverse from their last five matches across all tournaments - a sequence which has also seen Sagnol's team find the back of the net at least twice in four of those fixtures - and not since June 2022 have they been shut out on familiar territory.

Greece

Georgia's visitors Greece need no lessons in attacking supremacy either, though, as Gus Poyet's men made light work of an ostensibly tricky semi-final with an in-form Kazakhstan side, thrashing their fellow Euro 2024 hopefuls 5-0 at the Agia Sophia Stadium.

Four of those goals flew past the beleaguered Kazakhstan backline in the opening 40 minutes, where Anastasios Bakasetas, Dimitrios Pelkas, Fotis Ioannidis and Dimitrios Kourbelis killed the game off early doors before Erkin Tapalov's late own goal added insult to injury for the visitors.

Prolonging the feel-good factor from a positive end to 2023, where the Pirate Ship Crew eased past New Zealand 2-0 and held France to a creditable 2-2 draw, the Euro 2004 winners - celebrating the 20th anniversary of that astonishing continental triumph - arrive in Tbilisi with just one loss on their notebook from their last six games.

Barring that 1-0 loss to the Netherlands, each of Greece's other five games in that stretch has seen Poyet's team score multiple goals, and successfully fighting fire with fire against Georgia would see the visitors end their 12-year exile from the Euros, having failed to make either the 2016 or 2020 editions.

The head-to-head column makes for highly pleasant reading for the Greece faithful ahead of Tuesday's match, as the Pirate Ship Crew have avoided defeat in each of their first nine games with Georgia - winning seven of them - including a 2-0 success in Batumi during a 2022 World Cup qualifier.

Prediction: Georgia 2-3 Greece