This time, Malta did not set a record against Cyprus. After all, he succeeded all together in the trio he threw at us in September . Nevertheless, the 2-2 that he got at “AEK Arena” thanks to a goal at 98 ′, is correspondingly shameful for our national team, which failed to win in two games the (theoretically…) weakest team of our group and remained at the bottom of the 8th group.
It is worth noting that this is only the second time in the history of our national team that in a six-member qualifying group, either World Cup or Euro, it does not manage to beat the weakest (by ranking) team of its group in either of the two games.
The first time was relatively recently, in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, when we failed to beat Albania. In the first match we lost 3-1 in Tirana, while in the last match we “stuck” at 0-0 in GSP. The ions are not good as then we did not avoid the last position of the group, finishing sixth with five points, the ones we have now (11b. The Albanians).
At the same time, Malta also managed, also for only the second time in its history, to get four points from a team in the qualifying phase of any event.
The only previous time, before she succeeded against Cyprus, was in the 1994 World Cup qualifiers. Then her “victim” was Estonia, which she kept at 0-0 at home, and then got a double with 1-0. Malta managed to finish fifth and leave the Estonians in last place, something it seeks to do with us again this year.
