All the facts ahead of the friendly match between Greece and Montenegro

After beating Romania 1-0 on Gustavo Poget’s debut on the bench, the Greek national team meets Montenegro in a new friendly on Monday night (28/3, 21:00, OPEN TELEVISION, COSMOTE SPORT 1HD, LIVE Sportish), with the Hellenic Football Federation giving great credit on its official website, presenting all the useful information before the match.

The tribute of the EPO

In Podgorica against Montenegro, the national team will play their second game in preparation for the 2022-23 UEFA Nations League signings under Mr Gustavo Poget.

Andreas Bouchalakis scored his first goal in the men’s national team jersey in his 27th appearance and gave him a 1-0 win against Romania in Bucharest last Friday. The 29-year-old Heraklion midfielder became the 198th footballer in history to score for the national team.

The history

A friendly six years ago is the only one between Greece and Montenegro. On March 24, 2016, “Georgios Karaiskakis” Ethniki had won 2-1. Giorgos Tzavellas opened the scoring with a foul in the 54th minute, Tomasevic equalized with a header in the 56th minute to give victory to Nikos Karelis with a header (62nd minute) from a Costas Fortounis cross.

Hellas (Mikael Skibe): Karnezis, Tzavellas, Manolas (64′ Oikonomou), Petsos, Torosidis (84′ Siovas), Papastathopoulos, Stafilidis (84′ Tziolis), Mantalos (46′ Karelis), Samaris Torthounis (89′)).

Montenegro (Ljubisa Tubakovic): Mijatovic, Cekic (84′ Bolievic), Tomasevic (74′ Zverotic), Savelic, Simots, Marusic, Rodic (87′ Zoric), Vukcevic, Bakic (74′ Grbi) Betsirai.

referee: Istvan Kovacs (Romania)

tickets: 4,450.

statistics

– The National have won four of their last six friendlies. He only lost to Switzerland last September, while – among the wins – were both away games with Norway and Romania.

The national team is undefeated in the last seven games in March. The last defeat was on March 23, 2018 in a friendly match Greece – Switzerland 0:1 in OAKA. The last away defeat in March was 9 years ago (March 22) with 1:3 against Bosnia-Herzegovina in the World Cup qualifier. Since then, the national team has been unbeaten in six away games.

– The last time a manager won his first two games was in 1994. Costas Polychroniou had won all the first six of his tenure! Since then there has not been a coach who started with two wins.

– Gustavo Poget is the 14th foreign coach at the National Bank. 622 players played in his counted and recognized games, 501 of them in at least two games. 198 players scored, 119 more than one goal.

The opponent

As of December 28, 2020, Montenegro will be coached by 55-year-old Miodrag Radulovic. He worked in teams of Serbian academies and as an assistant coach for many years while working on a collective level from 2010 until he took over Lebanon for four years in 2015.

The Titograd-born forward played with Pierikos in the Second National in the 1995/96 season. He scored two goals in 22 games while also scoring four goals in as many Greek Cup games.

They took over Montenegro after the side’s worst performance in their history in EURO 2020 qualifying. They were promoted from League C to League B of the Nations League, where they now play against Romania, Finland and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, Montenegro finished 4th in its group.

The court

The match will take place in the … physical headquarters of the national team of Montenegro. Podgorica’s stadium, the “Goritsom” at the international games, has a capacity of up to 13,000 spectators. The Men or Hopes national team have never played locally, nor have any Greek club played in the European Cups.

The referee

38-year-old Croatian Fran Jovic from Zagreb will referee our national team’s game in Podgorica. We met him two years ago when he refereed AEK – Panathinaikos 1-0 on February 9, 2020.

He had beaten the national team again on November 15, 2020 in the match of Nations League Moldova – Greece 0:2 (32nd shot from Fortounis, 41st shot from Bacaceta).

Also on 23 March 2019, he refereed the national youth (U19) game against England, which the Greek team won 2-1.

Assistants: Hrvoje Radic and Luka Pusic. Montenegro’s Milos Savovic is fourth.

The next games of the National

• 06/02/2022: Northern Ireland v Greece (Nations League)

• 05.06.2022: Kosovo – Greece (Nations League)

• 09/06/2022: Greece – Cyprus or Estonia (Nations League)

• 12/06/2022: Greece v Kosovo (Nations League)

• 24/09/2022: Cyprus or Estonia – Greece (Nations League)

• 27/09/2022: Greece v Northern Ireland (Nations League)

(Cyprus and Estonia will play for the second time on March 29 after the 0-0 draw in Estonia).

Source: epo.gr