Greece and Nigeria are playing live on the World Cup international friendly schedule on Tuesday and the match comes streaming live from beIN Sport from PPL Park in Philadelphia in Chester as the teams prepare for the WC in Brazil 2014 and both are in the tournament and that is rare for these friendlies and it gives a good test for both sides as they try and get a win ahead of the tournament schedule.
Greece is coming into the match after a nice scoreless draw against Portugal on Saturday and that was a big performance for the team. The Greek side played strong defense and they will need to continue that if they want to make it out of the group stages and they will be dealing with some injuries, as Sokratis Papastathopoulos could be out for the match after getting hurt in that game against Portugal. The opponent did not have their best player in Cristiano Ronaldo, but they are still a strong team and they are in the group of death this year with the United States, Germany and Portugal.
The Greek team needs Giorgos Samaras and Kostas Mitroglou to step up their play and they have a tough opponent with Nigeria, as they are one of the stronger African teams in the tournament. Nigeria comes into the game after playing against Scotland at Craven Cottage and that matchup was a 2-2 draw and Nigeria has plenty to work on, as their defense had holes and was not strong in that matchup and they will have to play much better to defeat Greece. Shola Ameobi, Emmanuel Emenike and Peter Odemwingie gives the team some solid offensive options and they now will need everyone to step things up to get things done in Brazil.
The Group F draw is very tough and Nigeria comes in having to deal with Argentina and they are one of the favorites in the entire tournament with Spain and Brazil. The other group teams include Iran and Bosnia-Herzegovina and that makes the Nigerians and Argentina the favorites in this group and they likely will be the ones advancing. Greece has a draw in Group C and they play against Ireland, Japan and Colombia and that should not be too tough of a group for them to get out of.
Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi knows his team is better than what they did in the last friendly and this will be a big match as the teams prepare. The World Cup schedule starts with Brazil and Croatia on June 12 and the first match for Greece comes against Colombia and that will be on June 14 and then the team plays against Japan and then Ireland to finish off the group stage. Nigeria opens against Iran on June 16, while they then play Bosnia and they finish off against Argentina and that could be a huge match for both teams or nothing, as they could be in position to advance by that point depending on how the group stage plays out. Mexico and Bosnia play on Tuesday night for the late match on the friendly schedule and things continue through the week until the World Cup starts on Thursday of next week.
Check here for the Greece and Nigeria live coverage from BeIN Sport for the World Cup friendly match.