Colombia vs Greece Prediction - Will The Colombians Break The Greek Defensive Wall?

Next Saturday, Colombia will measure forces with Greece at Estádio Mineirão in Belo Horizonte for the opening match of Group C.

After a fantastic World Cup qualification round, after which they finished second behind the all-powerful Argentina, Colombia will now have their hands full with yet another very complicated task at the World Cup, where they will need to pull up their ranks if they want to walk through to the next round of the competition. Colombia were placed on what may prove to be a very tricky group, alongside with Greece, Ivory Coast and Japan.

The arrival of experienced José Pékerman at the helm of the Colombian National Team early in 2012 marked the beginning of a new era for the South American side. Despite the slow start, the new Colombia started to prove all their quality when they hammered the 2011 Copa America winners, Uruguay, 4-0 during the CONMEBOL qualifiers.

Pékerman brought new ideas and a new tactical style to Colombia, which (combined with the enormous talent from the majority of the players) opens the doors for a bright future ahead.

Colombia have only won one of the three friendly matches they played so far this year. After conceding two draws against The Netherlands and Tunisia, the Colombian side grabbed an easy 3-0 win against Jordan last week, with goals by James Rodríguez, Cuadrado, and Guarín.

Pékerman was forced to leave one of the team’s main stars out of the tournament, since Radamel Falcao was not fully recovered from an injury that has been taunting him for quite some time. Nevertheless, in the absence of their topscorer, Colombia still have plenty of good solutions for the front, with players such as Jackson Martínez and Carlos Bacca looking for their time of glory at the South America team.

As for Greece, the match against Colombia will mark the beginning of their third presence at a World Cup tournament. Fernando Santos’ men were forced to take part in two complicated playoff matches against Romania in order to grant their ticket to Brazil, after finishing second on their qualification group behind Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Portuguese manager has had, so far, a long and successful career at Greek football and the work he is carrying out at the country‘s National Team is also quite impressive. Although the team's goalscoring sheet is far from being impressive, Greece have a solid and cohesive defensive line, as one can easily see from their statistics during the UEFA qualification round (4 goals conceded in 10 matches).

Colombia are favourites for next Saturday’s match because of the quality of their men, although one cannot rule out a Greek side that usually is very strong on the counter-attack and that can cause an unpleasant surprise to the South American team.

Colombia

Stats: W-2 L-0 D-3

Recent Form - WLLLW

Greece

Stats: W-1 L-1 D-3

Recent Form - WDDLD

Possible Line-ups

Colombia (4-4-2) - Ospina - Zúñiga - Perea - Yepes - Armero - Aguilar - Sanchez - Cuadrado - James Rodríguez - Gutiérrez - Carlos Bacca

Greece (4-3-3) -  Karnezis - Torosidis - Sokratis - Vyntra - Holebas - Tziolis, Kone, Katsouranis - Salpingidis - Samaras - Mitroglou

Prediction: Colombia 1 Greece 0