Staff Reporter.
World number one side Belgium warmed up for the European Championship with a disappointing draw against Greece.
Belgium took the lead through Thorgan Hazard’s sixth Belgium goal after he exchanged passes with Yannick Carrasco and coolly converted at the near post.
Kyriakos Papadopoulos’ diving header struck the post and Georgios Tzavellas converted the rebound for Greece, who have failed to qualify for the Euros.
Belgium were without injured Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne.
The 29-year-old suffered a fractured nose and eye socket during last Saturday’s Champions League final defeat by Chelsea and waits to see if he will be fit enough to participate in the tournament.
Belgium face Croatia in their final friendly on Sunday (19:45 BST) and Roberto Martinez’s side will be considered as one of the favourites to win the Euros.
They begin their campaign against Russia on 12 June, followed by Denmark on 17 June and rounding off Group B against Finland on 21 June.
Meanwhile Northern Ireland were unable to build on Sunday’s victory over Malta as an early goal saw them fall to a 1-0 friendly defeat away to Ukraine.
Oleksandr Zubkov scored in the 10th minute for the hosts in their penultimate Euro 2020 warm-up match.
NI were overwhelmed in a relentless first half hour but responded well and came close to levelling through Ciaron Brown before the break.
Artem Besyedin had a goal disallowed for offside in the last minute.
Thursday night’s match in Dnipro came four days after Ian Baraclough enjoyed his first win in 90 minutes as Northern Ireland manager when his side defeated Malta 3-0 in the first of their friendly double-header.
He warned before the game that Ukraine would provide a much sterner test and that was evident from the start in what his Northern Ireland’s last outing before resuming their World Cup qualification campaign in September.
As he did on Sunday, Baraclough went for an experienced line-up rather than starting any of the youngsters called into the squad, though Dan Ballard came into the starting line-up after helping Blackpool win the League One play-off final at the weekend.
Other Results:
Andora 1 – 4 Republic of Ireland.
Japan vs. Jamaica (Match Cancelled).
Switzerland 7 – 0 Liechtenstein.
Turkey 2 – 0 Maldova.