For the second tournament in a row, Greece were the worst team in the group, thrashed by a Colombia side at half-speed, yet had somehow managed to keep their hopes alive with a soul-destroying draw against Japan. Surely they couldn’t sneak out of the group again, especially having lost two players to injury within 20 minutes? Fernando Santos made several alterations to the line-up but stayed with the 4-3-3, while Sabri Lamouchi brought back newly malaria-free Kolo Toure and Salomon Kalou back into his 4-2-1-3, giving Didier Drogba his first start of the tournament ahead of Wilfried Bony who had started the games against Japan and Colombia. The two formations mirrored one another and the two teams essentially cancelled out one another for most of the first half. The Ivorians would progress with a draw and Greece aren’t suited to having too attack. The Greek wingers did a good job tracking the Ivorian full-backs deep before breaking quickly. What little attacks they could create came from quick counters and when the Ivory Coast could slow them down, they basically just kicked a few passes around and swung in a cross. The only notable difference in their strategy was that they […]
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