Greece Women Fall 3-1 to England in World Cup Playoff

By Taki Panos

For a few seconds on Friday evening in Heraklion, the most dangerous player on the field wore blue and white. Ioanna Papatheodorou twisted past Esme Morgan, let one fly from distance, and for a moment it looked like Greece might take the lead against the champions of Europe. The ball hit the crossbar. England scored three times after that, Greece answered once, and the first leg of this Women's World Cup playoff ended 3-1 to the Lionesses.

Nobody in Greece walked into this one expecting a miracle. England are the two-time reigning European champions and played in the final of the last World Cup, as the Hellenic Football Federation noted in its match report, while Greece, as the Guardian pointed out, have never qualified for a major tournament. England only landed in the playoffs because they finished behind Spain in qualifying, per Sky Sports. In other words, the draw handed coach Vasilis Spertos and his players a tie nobody would have picked.

For a while, Greece made it awkward anyway. England had plenty of the ball but, in the Guardian's telling, made hard work of breaking down a deep and disciplined Greek shape. Lauren James thought she had opened the scoring with a beautiful chip in the first half, only for a VAR check to rule her offside. Then came Papatheodorou's shot off the bar. That is the underdog's whole game plan in one sequence: hang around, steal a moment, and let the favorite start feeling the nerves. If that ball drops a few inches lower, it's a different night.

The breakthrough came six minutes before halftime. Laura Blindkilde Brown found Alessia Russo, Russo laid it off, and Georgia Stanway slotted it in low for 1-0. After the break England tightened the screws. Maya Le Tissier, pushed high up the right side, hammered in her first goal for England in the 63rd minute after Keira Walsh opened up the space, and four minutes later Russo steered Beth Mead's square pass into the bottom corner. Three goals in 28 minutes of game time, and the tie looked finished.

This is the part I want Greek fans to remember, because the scoreline hides it. Greece didn't fold. Papatheodorou, the home side's biggest threat according to the BBC, held the ball up and fed Kallisti Brouksair in the box (Sky Sports spells it Calliste Brookshire), and the Rangers forward beat Hannah Hampton with a low, angled finish. Sky called it a goal that gave the underdogs some hope, and the federation's own report made a point of saying the players never gave up. England hit the crossbar again in stoppage time, so nobody is pretending this was even, but 3-1 is a very different suitcase to carry to Leicester than 4-0.

Sarina Wiegman, to her credit, didn't dress it up. She said England had been "a bit sloppy" at times, according to the Guardian, and she praised Greece for being "very well-prepared, very well-organised and very disciplined." Her best line was the honest one: "Of course, I'm happy with the 3-1. I'm not happy with the 1." When the coach of the European champions is still grumbling about your goal after a win, that goal mattered.

One detail from Crete stung a little. The Guardian reported that the federation made tickets free and only a few thousand people turned up, with around 500 traveling England fans making most of the noise. I'm not going to wag a finger at anybody from a laptop, and an early Friday evening kickoff is never an easy sell. Still, a Greek national team taking on the European champions, on home soil, for free, deserves a fuller house the next time it comes around.

It also helps to see this inside a pretty good autumn for Greek football. The men's team is unbeaten in its Nations League group, with eight points from four games after a 0-0 draw with Germany in Thessaloniki last Sunday, a week after beating Germany for the first time ever, as Greek Reporter recapped. The women's program is at a different stage of its story, but nights like Friday, when a heavy favorite has to sweat a little, are exactly how a program builds one.

The return leg is Tuesday, October 13, at the King Power Stadium in Leicester, with kickoff at 7:30 p.m. UK time, as Leicester City announced (that's 9:30 p.m. in Greece and 2:30 p.m. on the US East Coast). Greece need a two-goal win just to force extra time, which against this England side is a bit like turning down yiayia's second helping: rarely done, but not technically impossible. The winner plays Slovakia or Ukraine in a second round during the November and December window, and the winner of that tie books a place at Brazil 2027.

If you're following from New York, Boston, Chicago or Melbourne, our guide on how to stream Greek soccer live is a good place to start, and our piece on how to watch Greek TV online covers the rest of the dial. And if Friday's pictures from the Pankritio put Crete on your travel list, our guide to planning the perfect Crete itinerary will help you fit Heraklion in before you head for the beaches.

My take, for whatever it's worth from a guy who has watched a lot of Greek teams lose with their heads up: this was a good loss, if there is such a thing. England were the better team and nobody is arguing otherwise. But Greece hit the woodwork, scored against the European champions, and left their coach talking about sloppiness instead of celebrating. That is not nothing, and it is not the end of the story either.

For more stories like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. I'll be watching Tuesday, hoping for an early Greek goal and a nervous English crowd. Stranger things have happened in this sport, usually just when everybody stopped paying attention.

Sources: The Guardian, Sky Sports, BBC Sport, Hellenic Football Federation (EPO), Leicester City FC, Greek Reporter.

Image: Flag of Greece, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).