Greece vs Serbia: Zivkovic and Dragojevic Out in Volos
After a 3-1 loss to Germany, Serbia play Greece on Monday at 8:45 pm for a playoff spot or direct relegation to League B, with two players suspended for red cards.
Before kickoff at Marakana there was a minute of silence for Dzevad Prekazi, a Partizan legend, and then Serbia and Germany played in pouring rain, in front of stands where only children were allowed because of a UEFA punishment. Serbia lost 3-1 on Friday, November 13, in the fifth round of Nations League Group A2, so they arrive in Volos for Greece vs Serbia without a single point. The match is on Monday, November 16, at 8:45 pm at Panthessaliko Stadium, and it is the last round, where it is decided whether the Eagles go to the playoff or straight down to League B.
How Germany got to 3-0
The visitors scored after about two minutes, though some reports log the goal in the 3rd minute. After a Mittelstadt corner, Kai Havertz tried a header, the ball deflected off Srdjan Babic and ended up in Serbia’s net. In the 14th minute Florian Wirtz made it 2-0: Havertz shot, Vanja Milinkovic-Savic saved, but Wirtz got to the rebound. Serbia only got their first real chance in the 35th minute, when Nikola Milenkovic failed to reach the ball after a quickly taken cross.
The third goal came in the 50th minute from Brajan Gruda. Babic pulled one back in the 55th minute, making it 3-1 after a cross from the left and a save by Ter Stegen, so he put the ball into both nets in the same match. In the 65th minute Germany had a Joshua Kimmich goal disallowed for offside, and right after that they hit the post. Aleksandar Mitrovic, who had only just come on, had a header in the 72nd minute from an Andrija Zivkovic cross, but Ter Stegen was in the right place. Two minutes after Babic’s goal, Mihajlo Cvetkovic also had a chance, but that shot too ended up with the German goalkeeper.
Two red cards in the last fifteen minutes
Serbia finished the match with nine men. Vanja Dragojevic was sent off in the 76th minute: the referee first showed him a yellow card for a rough tackle, then changed it to a straight red after a VAR check. Near the end, in the 88th or 89th minute depending on the source, Andrija Zivkovic got a straight red after protesting and making contact with the referee.
After the match, the players spoke about the performance. Defender Nikola Milenkovic told reporters only this: “This must not keep happening to us.” Captain Dusan Tadic said of the start of the match: “After the first goal we were shaken like a boxer.” Tadic handed the captain’s armband to Milenkovic in the 64th minute, when Vladimir Lucic replaced him.
There was no head coach on the bench. Veljko Paunovic was serving a suspension for yellow cards, so assistant Nuno Gomes led the team from the sideline. We wrote before the match that the coach could not lead the team against Germany, and against Greece he returns to the bench.
What is at stake in Volos?
The Group A2 table after five rounds looks like this:
- Netherlands 11 points
- Greece 8 points
- Germany 8 points
- Serbia 0 points, goal difference 4-11
Serbia lost all five matches, three of them by a single goal, and are certain to finish fourth in the group. That does not mean automatic relegation from League A: of the fourth-placed teams in League A, the best two go to a playoff against the runners-up from League B, and the two worst drop straight to League B. The playoff draw is on November 20, and the two-legged tie is played from March 25 to 30, 2027.
The math is complicated, because fourth-placed teams are compared across all matches in their group. According to the calculation circulating before the last round, a win in Volos leads to the playoff in almost all combinations, while for a draw or a loss the matches played on Sunday evening will be decisive: France vs Turkey and Croatia vs Czechia. That means that when Serbia take the field on Monday, they will know exactly what they need.
Who is on the other side and who is missing?
Greece are coached by Ivan Jovanovic, a Serbian coach, and the Greeks are second with eight points going into the last round, ahead of Germany on head-to-head results: they won 1-0 in Augsburg, and in Thessaloniki it was 0-0. The match is refereed by Englishman Michael Oliver, and the VAR is Stuart Attwell.
For Volos, Serbia are without the suspended Dragojevic and Zivkovic. Dusan Vlahovic, Filip Kostic and Strahinja Pavlovic were also unavailable for this camp, and Aleksandar Stankovic left the preparations because of an injury. The previous meeting with Germany, on October 1 in Munich, ended 2-0 to the hosts, and before Friday Serbia had four straight defeats in the competition.
Serbia arrive in Volos with zero points and four goals scored in five matches. Paunovic returns to the bench, and by Monday at 8:45 pm he has to fill the places of the two suspended players.
