Having narrowly missed out on automatic qualification, Greece will attempt to make things right in the play-offs against Romania.

Meanwhile, their opponents impressed to pip Turkey and Hungary to the second place in the group, but they still face a tough task in Athens.

Greece have seriously raised their profile in the noughties, winning the Euro 2004 and regularly appearing at other major tournaments, and they remain a tough nut to crack.

Ethniki may have missed out on the top spot in their qualifying group, but their latest run of results is enough to suggest they go into the Romania double header in perfect spirits.

Having won their last six matches in all competitions, Greece are rightly considered 2.05 (21/20) favourites to win the first leg.

What is more, they haven’t conceded a single goal during that period, meaning a clean sheet bet needs to be considered at 2.20 (6/5).

Georgios Samaras should be fit to play after recovering from a knee problem, but Fernando Santos has no other worries at the moment.

Probable starting line-up (4-4-1-1): Karnezis – Torosidis, Papastathopoulos, Siovas, Holebas – Salpingidis, Maniatis, Tziolis, Christodopoulos – Samaras – Mitroglou.

Romania have been on a major downtrend of late, so they were not really given big chances to make it to the 2014 World Cup finals.

And with Netherlands as impressive as always, Victor Piturca’s side had to battle Turkey and Hungary for the second place in the group.

Despite suffering quite a few slip-ups along the way, Romania somehow managed to clinch the play-off berth, but they face all kinds of problems ahead of the Greece game.

With quite a few important players missing at the moment, the Eastern European side are 2.20 (6/5) to qualify for the tournament finals.

Captain Vlad Chiriches is a major doubt with a broken nose, whereas Ciprian Tatarusanu and Mihai Pintilii are definitely out.

Manchester City keeper Costel Pantilimon is likely to deputize even if he was not in the original squad, with Ciprian Marica set to lead the line.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Pantilimon – Matel, Goian, Gardos, Rat – Bourceanu, Lazar – Bucur, Tanase, Stancu – Marica.