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Key events
71 min: Now it’s Scotland with the wind in their sail. McTominay dribbles hard down the inside-left channel. He’s swarmed before he can shoot, but the Tartan Army are bouncing in beautiful bedlam. What a noise in Piraeus!
GOAL! Greece 3-2 Scotland (Christie 70)
The last few minutes have been trippy enough … but now things have gotten positively lysergic. Robertson whips a cross in from the left, and Christie, eight yards out, rises to plant a header into the bottom left! The game’s certainly far from over now!
68 min: Oh my. Oh my goodness. Belarus are now leading 2-1 in Denmark! Nikita Demchenko on 65 minutes. Could they hang on and throw Scotland the mother of all lifelines?
67 min: Nope, the goal stands. And here’s a twister: Belarus have equalised in Denmark, Valeri Gromyko levelling things up in Copenhagen on 62 minutes! So if both matches were to end now, Scotland would still be able to finish in top spot if they beat the Danes on Tuesday.
66 min: There’s a VAR check. Did McGinn foul Vagiannidis? There was contact, but nothing worthy of overturning the goal, surely. While the decision is pending, Bakasetas is booked for having his say.
GOAL! Greece 3-1 Scotland (Gannon-Doak 65)
Now then, this is getting silly. McGinn makes good down the left, swatting Vagiannidis out of the way and crossing low for Gannon-Doak, who absolutely roofs home from six yards. Game not quite over?
GOAL! Greece 3-0 Scotland (Tzolis 63)
Tzolis strides down the middle of the park. He takes a touch to the right, before lashing a rising drive towards the top left. There’s power behind it, but Gordon should stop it. Instead, he allows it through both hands. Game over.
62 min: The corner’s half cleared, but Mouzakitis pearls it back through a crowded area. A proper ripper. Fortunately for Scotland, it’s straight at Gordon, who snaffles.
61 min: Greece are pushing for a third. Tetteh breaks clear of Hanley again and aims for the bottom left. Gordon blocks. From the resulting corner, Retsos bashes a header off the left-hand post. Another corner coming up.
59 min: That huge blow came just four minutes after Christie and Adams combined to pass up Scotland’s glorious chance to equalise. Another bittersweet chapter. I should get round to updating this.
GOAL! Greece 2-0 Scotland (Karetsas 57)
Tetteh barrels down the left flank, bursting past the static Hanley. He reaches the area, waits for the arrival of Karetsas, and cuts back. Karetsas meets the ball first time, passing with power into the left-hand side of the net, out of Gordon’s reach. Scotland’s hopes of automatic qualification look over.
55 min: Christie’s slightly heavy touch as he tried to round the keeper did for Scotland there. He should have been slotting himself. Mind you, the same can subsequently be said for Adams.
53 min: Karetsas plays an awful square ball in from the Greek right. Christie intercepts and he’s suddenly one on one with Vlachodimos! He rounds the keeper and lays off for Adams, who shoots goalwards … only for Karetsas, who has made it all the way back, to block! What heroics! Adams has another whack, and the keeper’s back in position. Brilliant defending after an awful mistake, but Scotland should be level.
52 min: Ferguson has a nibble at Bakasetas. He wants to watch himself.
50 min: Gannon-Doak is seeing a lot of the ball. He dribbles again down the right, and nearly gets past Tsimikas, whose lunge is enough to put his opponent off. Gannon-Doak’s cross sails out for a goal kick. But he comes at Tsimikas again, winning a corner that leads to some head tennis. Greece eventually clear, but this is much, much better from the Scots.
48 min: Karetsas advances dangerously down the right but hits a cross-cum-shot into the side netting.
47 min: McGinn finds Gannon-Doak on the right with a sensational long-range diagonal pass. Gannon-Doak dribbles into the box but his cross is blocked. He gesticulates towards the away fans; every little helps.
Scotland get the second half started. No changes.
Half-time postbag. “I haven’t watched Scotland in a while, and I’ve been wondering why all the belly aching? Now I get it. Holy Crapdoodle! I can’t even tell what formation they are playing in. The keeper just lumps the ball downfield 20 yards past the lone forward. The defensive “line” is more like a collection of electrons winking in and out of existence. I used to think Clarke was doing a decent job with limited resources. Either he’s lost the room, the room has lost him, or they’ve all lost their marbles. And in the shadow of the Parthenon no less. At this rate, the least embarrassing outcome for Scotland is to not go to the World Cup” – Ben Barclay
“Tsimikas v Robertson is an intriguing battle of Liverpool left backs. It’s a shame that – at best – only one of these two brilliant characters will grace the Geopolitics World Cup, while the other is, well, left back” – Peter Oh
“Here’s an interesting article on Andreas Tetteh for you. He’s had all sorts of struggles over the years. I’m delighted that he’s finally earned a first cap for Greece, and wish him all the best, but not tonight! Sorry, Mum!” – Stelios Jackson
Apposite half-time entertainment.
HALF TIME: Greece 1-0 Scotland
Greece could easily be out of sight. But Scotland’s hopes of first place aren’t done just yet: they somehow hung on by their fingernails, finally woke up, and carved out a couple of good opportunities towards the end of the half. They’ve hit the bar and missed a one-on-one. More of that, and you never know!
45 min +4: McTominay, quarterbacking just to the left of the centre circle, rolls a pass down the middle to release Gannon-Doak. He’s clear! He enters the box, opens his body, and attempts to sidefoot across Vlachodimos and into the bottom right. But the keeper stays big to block. Nothing comes of the resulting corner. A huge chance!
45 min +3: … and now Adams misses a header from a couple of yards! Gannon-Doak probes down the right and pulls back for Hickey, who crosses. McTominay flicks on, and Adams flashes his header into the side netting! To be fair, that came at him super-quickly, and he was coming in from a tight angle. It wasn’t as easy a chance as “two yards out” makes it sound.
45 min +1: In the first of four additional first-half minutes, McTominay hits the crossbar! A ball rolled in from the left. Adams dummies, and McTominay sends a power-curler towards the top left. Just that little bit too high. Vlachodimos, rooted to the spot, wasn’t getting there.
45 min: Gannon-Doak one-twos with McTominay down the inside-right channel. He looks to pick up the return and enter the box, only to be brazenly checked by his former Liverpool team-mate Tsimikas. Greece clear their lines.
43 min: Pavlidis goes down again. He performs the sub-me hand-jive to his bench. Tetteh replaces him, coming on for his first cap.
41 min: Pavlidis, who had been clipped by Souttar and isn’t too happy about it, gets back up. The Tartan Army also continue to fume.
40 min: Pavlidis goes down off the ball. He wants treatment. Meanwhile the Scotland fans are booing loudly, the result of Greece having been given the ball back after a previous stoppage, when it should have been Scotland’s throw.
38 min: … so it turns out it was McGinn who was booked earlier, something neither the TV director nor Opta realised at the time. Or me, to be fair. Hands up!
36 min: … nothing happens for Scotland. If we’re being honest with ourselves, a 1-1 scoreline would have been utterly absurd. But that’s football, and for the first time Greece have been given something to think about. Small acorns.
35 min: Robertson powers down the left and fires a low cross towards the near post, where Adams waits to tap home. Retsos gets back in time to turn the ball around for a corner. McGinn sends it low to the near stick, where Retsos again denies Adams. Corner two … and Ferguson sends this one long. Souttar’s presence at the far stick leads to corner number three of the sequence. From which …
33 min: Pavlidis in the action again, stretching to meet Tzolis’s cross from the left and guiding the ball into the side netting. In a parallel universe somewhere, Scotland are four down and playing with ten men.
