Euro 2012 action begins Friday Evening from Stadion Narodowy, featuring Poland v Greece. The whole game is being shown Live on BBC 1 High Definition, with a scheduled 17:00pm (BST) Kick Off Time.
Welcome and thank you for stopping by to view our Poland v Greece Betting Preview for the opening game of Euro 2012 where we have provided you with the latest team news, head to head statistics, best betting odds markets and our free betting tips predictions on the match.
Poland head into their opening game in decent form of late having gone six games unbeaten during recent friendly matches in which they won five of those and drew the other. Coach Franciszek Smuda’s side were last beaten back at the beginning of November 2011, when losing 0-2 at home against Italy.
Greece head into the game having qualified from their group as winners and not losing a single match in their ten matches played in which they won seven and drew three. However, coach Fernando Santos’ side have not been in the same sort of form in recent friendly matches where they have won just once.
Poland v Greece Team News
Poland Team News : Arsenal’s Wojciech Szczęsny will take up his position in goal and will be protected by a back four which going on recently friendly games looks likely to consist of Perquis, Boenisch, Wasilewski and either Piszczek or Wojtkowiak.
The midfield should be relatively unchanged to what coach Franciszek Smuda has chosen in the pre-tournament warm ups with Błaszczykowski, Obraniak, Polanski, Dudka and Rybus the most likely candidates to feature in the 4-5-1 formation.
In attack Poland have a gifted goalscorer in Robert Lewandowski and the 23 year old who plays his domestic football for Borussia Dortmund is more than capable of causing the greece defence some problems during this game but with the lack of a strike partner it will mean his chances will be far and few between.
Greece Team News : Michalis Sifakis looks likely to start in goal with protection in the defence from Kiriakos Papadopoulos, Avram Papadopoulos, Jose Holebas and either Vassilis Torosidis or Giannis Maniatis.
The old guard of Giorgios Karagounis and Kostas Katsouranis will probably be the first names down on the team sheet to fill the midfield places with exciting youngster Sotiris Ninis who has plenty of pace to get passed defenders on the flanks.
Dimitris Salpigidis, Theofanis Gekas, Georgios Samaras will be the main attack up front and depending on the formation coach Fernando Santos decides to go with in this game all three could see some action at some point with Giannis Fetfatzidis nicknamed the Greek Messi being a very capable replacement to make regular appearances in the second half to fill in as replacement.
Poland v Greece Head to Head Statistics
Friday evening’s match will become the 8th meeting between the two nations since 1984 and all the results of those game are listed in our head to head statistics table shown below.
- Poland Victories : 5 (4 in Poland)
- Draws : 1 (0 in Poland)
- Greece Victories : 1 (0 in Poland)
The statistics clearly favour the joint host’s where they have beaten greece all four times when having home advantage with greece only managing the one victory which came over in Greece back in 1987.
Poland v Greece Best Match Betting Odds
When the draw for the group stage was made back in early december, greece immediately become the favourites to win this opening match with many online bookmakers making them odds on to do so.
However, since their ease of qualification to these finals recent friendly matches have certainly not been as straight forward with Fernando Santos’ side picking up just one victory from their five games played which was a 1-0 victory on neutral ground against Armenia.
Poland in comparisson have had no such problems during their warm up friendly games where they have won five and drew one and as such the online bookmakers have quickly adjusted their prices to reflect this and now make Poland the new favourites to win the game as shown below where I have provided you with the very best online prices for each side to win the game along with the draw.
