Euro 2012 recap: Serbia 2-1 Northern Ireland -
Vlado Petrovic’s men go third in the group table
Serbia beat Northern Ireland 2-1 in a Group C encounter of the Euro 2012 qualifiers at the Crvena Zvezda Stadion on Friday evening. The win takes the Serbians to the third spot in the group, level on points with the second placed Slovenia.
Vlado Petrovic named a strong starting line-up which featured Chelsea’s http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Marko-Pantelic-c24209 started as a lone striker.
On the other hand, Nigel Worthington included several Barclays Premier League based players in his playing eleven. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kyle-Lafferty-c21560 led the strike force in a 4-5-1 formation.
The game took off to a slow start as both the teams waited for their opponents to venture forward, waiting for counter-attacking opportunities. However, sloppy possession play from both the sides meant chances were few and hard to come by in the opening
10 minutes.
Chris Brunt came close to scoring a screamer in the 11th minute; the West Bromwich Albion midfielder picked the ball from 22 yards out and fired a thunderous shot, which missed the right post by a few inches.
The Serbians also came close to scoring in the 12th minute. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/ACF-Fiorentina-c38209 sensation, found himself clear on goal but Gareth McAuley made a wonderful block to deny the hosts. Moments later, Ljajic was presented with a fantastic
opportunity yet again but the 19-year-old sent his shot sailing over the bar from just five yards out. The Serbs continued to dominate the game and looked very dangerous on the counter attack.
It was the visitors who opened the scoring in the 38th minute completely against the run of play. McAuley nodded a looping header into the back of the net from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chris-c9006 Brunt’s free kick to make it 1-0 for Northern Ireland. The 265 travelling fans
in the ground were in partying mood as they saw their team take an important lead.
Just before the half time whistle, the Green and White Army came close to doubling their lead, when Brunt played Lafferty inside the box but he scooped his shot over the bar.
The Serbians started the game strongly in the second half and came close of equalising in the 52nd minute. Milos Krasic’s delivery from the corner was met by a thumping header from Ivanovic but the goalkeeper denied him with a fantastic finger
tip save.
Just after the hour mark, however, Serbia managed to equalise when Milan Jovanovic’s cross evaded everybody in the visitors' box and Pantelic drilled a low shot into the goal to make it 1-1.
Eight minutes later, the hosts scored again to take the lead. It was a lovely piece of link-up play between Milos Ninkovic and Zoran Tosic before the latter slammed the ball into the net to make it 2-1.
Northern Ireland failed to recover from the shock and rarely threatened the Serbian goal. The game ended 2-1 in favour of the home side, as Nigel Worthington’s men slumped to their first defeat of the qualifying round.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Slovenia-c3008 the same day.
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