Greece victory not enough

Greece were pipped to the UEFA European Under-19 Championship finals despite completing elite round Group 2 unbeaten with a defeat of Romania.

Petros Mantalos struck twice in the second half to give Greece a deserved victory but they finished second on goals scored behind Portugal, who defeated mini-tournament hosts Hungary 3-2. "We played well; we had so many chances, even in the last minute we had our best chance so it's so sad that we have not qualified," Greece coach Georgios Geordiadis told UEFA.com.

Facing a team already certain to finish fourth, Greece were purposeful from the outset in particular Mantalos in midfield and in the first half he curled a free-kick just wide while captain Stylianos Vasiliou headed Athanasios Karagkounis's cross against the bar and Nikolaos Karelis missed from close range. Five minutes after the break Kyriakos Papadopoulos also hit the crossbar but the deadlock was broken just past the hour by Mantaolos, as he strode forward following a Konstantinos Fortounis pass and sent a low shot in from 25 metres.

Karelis missed again from not far out with 13 minutes left and Fortounis had a goal ruled out for offside. Mantalos gave Greece renewed hope with four minutes left as his free-kick deflected past substitute goalkeeper George Vartopeanu but Papadopoulos missed at the death and although they had inflicted Romania's third defeat in the group, it did not prove enough to take Greece to the finals.

Geordiadis reflected: "Perhaps the players were a little bit nervous but Mantalos was very cool – the coolest man on the pitch; he scored two goals and played fantastically. Scoring two goals near the end of a match is hard to do, we had all our players up front in the last 20 minutes and then in the last second we had that chance which could have taken us through, but it wasn't to be."

Romania coach Cristian Sava said: "We worked very hard but Greece were very quick. We tried make the score 1-0 to us on the counterattack and we had some opportunities. We did not score but this is the way the game is. Portugal were the best team so they deserved to qualify from this group."