There were no official encounters scheduled this week, but black-and-white players were engaged in strong and spectacular friendly encounters.

Egypt played their first encounter after losing the African Cup of Nations’ final and returned to their winning ways, prevailing 3-0 in their friendly match against Togo. Amr Warda started the match and played for 58 minutes.

With Gojko Cimirot coming off the bench in the second half, Bosnia and Herzegovina prevailed 2-1 over Albania in Elbasan. Edin Džeko gave Bosnians the lead with a spot kick (7’) and Senad Lulić made it 2-0 for the visitors three minutes from half time. Bekim Balaj reduced distances in the 68th minute.

Fernando Varela played all 90 minutes in Cape Verde’s friendly against Luxembourg. The African side won 2-0 with two first-half goals.

Friendly defeat for Greece U21s

The young Greek internationals were treated to a strong away test against their Polish counterparts. The troops of Antonis Nikopolidis lost 2-1. Efthymis Koulouris, Panagiotis Deligiannidis and Lazaros Lambrou played all 90 minutes. The former scored Greece’s solitary goal from the spot in added time.

Three eliminations in the Elite Round

Greece U19 were faced with a tall order anyway, as they needed to defeat the Netherlands in order to qualify to the UEFA European Under-19 Championship finals. The Oranje defended in numbers aiming for a clean sheet and managed to get the draw and advance. Marios Siampanis was once again the starting goalkeeper. His foul led to a penalty for the home side, but he managed to save it with the help of the woodwork. In the same play he pulled off a second save.

Cyprus and Serbia canceled each other out with a goalless draw and were both eliminated from the UEFA European Under-19 Championship finals. Nikolas Mattheou played all 90 minutes, while Meletis Mišković was introduced in the second half.