BH national football team played a draw in Greece (1: 1) in the fourth round of qualifiers for Group H for the World Championship that will be held in 2018 in Russia.
Immediately at the start of the match our team played strong. Already in the second minute Sead Kolasinac crossed from the left, but Vedad Ibisevic shot in the head of well positioned Orestis Karnezis.
Izet Hajrovic had a great chance in the 21st minute, he shot from the right side, but the ball went just a few centimeters by the right goalpost.
Our team took the lead in the 32nd minute. Miralem Pjanic shot from a free kick from about 25 meters from Karnezis’s goals, the ball was set up and kicked in his style, but the shot hit the goalpost and rebounded back from Karnezis in the network for a large celebration of around 2,000 of our fans at the stadium, “Georgios Karaiskakis”. UEFA officially enrolled that goal as a goal of the Greek goalkeeper.
In the second of four minutes of additional time, the Greeks had the opportunity to score. Kostas Stafylidis passed the ball to Mitroglou who goes one on one with Asmir Begovic, but our goalkeeper spectacularly saved our network.
In the beginning of the second half, both teams played cautiously, primarily taking care of the defense of their goal, and they mostly played on the center, and then the Greeks hit the goalpost in the 55th minute.
Kostas Fortounis received the ball 30 meters from our goal and shot, but Begovic managed just to touch the ball with his fingertips, and saved our network once again.
After 74 minutes, the Dragons were able to double the advantage. Senad Lulic shot to Pjanic who shot from 10 meters and missed.
Great mess took place in 76th minutes, when nearly all the players got involved in a major conflict that was started by Dzeko and Papasthatopoulos and epilog was the second yellow card to captain of BH selection, and direct red card for Papadopoulos.
By the end of the match, the Greeks were trying to get the tying goal, and managed to do it in the 95th minute when Tzavellas checkmated Begovic from 20 meters.
With this point we remained in the race for second place, which leads to the barrage.
Greece (4-2-3-1): Orestis Karnezis – Vasilis Torosidis, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Giorgios Tzavellas – Giannis Maniatis (Giannis Gianniotas 61′), Andreas Samaris – Petros Mantalos (Nikolaos Karelis 87′), Kostas Fortounis, Kostas Stafylidis – Kostas Mitroglou.
BiH (4-4-2): Asmir Begović – Ognjen Vranješ, Emir Spahić (Toni Šunjić 70′), Ervin Zukanović, Sead Kolašinac – Izet Hajrović (Ermin Bičakčić 87′), Miralem Pjanić, Mato Jajalo, Senad Lulić – Edin Džeko, Vedad Ibišević (Milan Đurić 84′).
The remaining matches of BiH:
BiH – Gibraltar (25th of March 2017)
Bosnia and Herzegovina – Greece (9th of June 2017)
Cyprus – Bosnia and Herzegovina (31st of August 2017)
Gibraltar – Bosnia and Herzegovina (3rd of September 2017.)
Brussels – Belgium (7th of October 2017)
Estonia – BiH (10th of October 2017.)
Take a look at Pjanic’s goal.
(Source: E. B./Klix.ba)