On Wednesday, Michael Skibbe announced Greece’s 24-man roster for next Saturday’s World Cup qualifier away to Belgium. There are three new faces to the national team including Olympiacos youngsters Athanasios Androutsos, Georgios Manthatis and Panathinaikos captain Carlos Zeca.
Manthatis, Androutsos, and Zeca received their first call up to the Greek National team on Wednesday and will travel to Belgium for Greece’s crucial qualifier next week. The youngsters have recently put on great showings with Olympiacos, but were somewhat of a surprise call-up while Carlos Zeca was sworn in as a Greek citizen on Tuesday. However, there is still outstanding paperwork before Zeca obtains the right to play for the National Team and the strict time crunch to get this done could prevent his eligibility to play against Belgium.
In addition to the new faces, there were no other surprises in Skibbe’s call-ups. One name that was expected to be called up was PAOK’s Giannis Mystakidis, however his first call up will have to wait. Stefanos Kapino took the place of the injured Orestis Karnezis while Nikos Karelis (ACL injury) and Kyriakos Papadopoulos (suspended) were not called up.
The players will meet up on Monday and will have their first training session on Tuesday. Kickoff for next Saturday’s game (March 25) is set for 9:45 PM local Greek team, 3:45 PM Eastern Standard Time.
GREECE'S 24-MAN ROSTER
Goalkeepers: Panagiotis Glykos (PAOK), Stefanos Kapino (Olympiacos), Dimitris Kyriakidis (Panetolikos)
Defenders: Vassilis Torosidis (Bologna), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (B. Dortmund), Kostas Manolas (Roma), Marios Oikonomou (Bologna), Georgios Tzavellas (Alanyaspor), Kostas Stafylidis (Augsburg)
Midfielders: Panagiotis Tachtsidis (Cagliari), Andreas Samaris (Benfica), Giannis Maniatis (Atromitos), Alexandros Tziolis (Hearts), Carlos Zeca (Panathinaikos), Manolis Siopis (Panionios), Athanasios Androutsos (Olympiacos), Kostas Fortounis (Olympiacos), Petros Mantalos (AEK), Giannis Gianniotas (APOEL), Georgios Manthatis (Olympiacos)
Forwards: Dimitris Diamantakos (Karlsruhe), Kostas Mitroglou (Benfica), Apostolos Vellios (Nottingham Forest), Tasos Bakasetas (AEK)
*For more sport head to agonasport.com
