Greece vs Belarus Prediction: Ioannidis fancied to bag

Placed in Group H alongside Denmark and Scotland, Greece and Belarus will do battle (19:45 BST) searching for an important three points to get their qualification campaign underway. With dreams of making it to the expanded World Cup next year, both these teams will fancy their chances of causing a shock or two - with top spot in the four-team group automatically qualifying, and second place heading into the play-offs. 

Below you will find my Greece vs Belarus predictions featuring team news and more. 

Team News

One good, one bad in terms of left-backs for Greece as Kostas Tsimikas, now on loan at Roma, is fit to play while Dimitris Giannoulis, formerly of Norwich City, remains out injured. Another former Canary, Christos Tzolis, is absolutely flying at Club Brugge and should feature on the wing, with Fostis Ioannidis and Vangelis Pavlidis set to battle it out once again for the number nine spot. 

West Ham’s Konstantinos Mavropanos should line up in the centre of defence alongside Pantelis Chatzidiakos, while there is a lot of excitement building around 17-year-old Genk midfielder Konstantinos Karetsas. He’s scored one goal in three international matches for Greece to date, having played the entirety of his youth career for the nation of his birth, Belgium. He’s certainly one to watch going forward. 

Football Odds

Belarus are going to be without Maksim Kireev due to a slight knock for this one, so 18-year-old striker Trofim Melnichenko will likely be supported by Nikita Korzun. Defender Pavel Apetenok has been called up to the squad and wil hope to make his first international appearance at the age of 18.

Today's Football Fixtures

Greece vs Belarus Odds

Greece are priced as the 1/5 favourites to secure a win in this opening match, giving them an implied win probability of 83%. Belarus are the 16/1 outsiders, with a draw priced up at 5/1. 

BTTS has been priced at 7/4, with over 2.5 goals available at 4/5. Pavlidis is the favourite to score first at 3/1 having scored nine goals for his country to date. 

Greece to win with -1 handicap @ 4/6

Greece have won eight of their last 10 matches and have actually looked like a really good football team since Ivan Jovanovic took charge. I think they’ve got a decent shot of qualifying for the World Cup next summer given they have been scoring goals for fun, hitting 11 in their last three outings. 

Greece’s two defeats during this time have come at home against England and Scotland in the Nations League, but it’s worth adding that in the same tournament they went away to Wembley and won 2-1, before hammering Scotland 3-0 at Hampden Park just days after they lost 1-0 at home. There’s an obvious amount of talent in this squad, and they seem to be functioning really smoothly under Jovanovic, who came in at the start of this winning run. That’s not a coincidence by any means, and so I expect Greece to get a big home win to kick their campaign off against Belarus. 

Fotis Ioannidis to score two or more @ 13/2 

A lot of the attention for Greece is on Benfica striker Pavlidis, but I believe Ioannidis, who is 25 years old, is the one that will get the nod and can find the net a couple of times. When Viktor Gyokeres was sold to Arsenal by Sporting CP this summer, the Portuguese giants made the big move at the end of the summer window to sign Ioannidis for £20m from Panathinkaikos. 

That’s quite the nod of confidence in a striker that was also an Ipswich Town transfer target when they were in the Premier League. He’s currently scored six goals in 17 international appearances but he got four in five across 2024 and I think he is now Greece’s biggest threat. Given Belarus conceded four against Russia in their last outing, I think Ioannidis can make a name for himself on home soil.

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