Two days ago it was Tomas Soucek who suffered the ignominy of a late error costing his side a goal and the game as Spain ran out 2 – 0 winners against his Czech Republic.
Last night it was his West Ham team mate Dinos Mavropanos who endured a horror 90 minutes up against former team mate Crysencio Summerville’s Netherlands, in which the Dutch team racked up a 7-0 destruction job of Dinos’ Greece.
Understandably, West Ham’s lynchpin centre back didn’t emerge from the mauling with anything other than widespread criticism. Sportsdunia.com didn’t mix their words when it came to rating Dinos’ performance the as poorest of the eleven:
Konstantinos Mavropanos – 3.5: This was a nightmare outing, and you could almost see his confidence draining. He conceded corners early and never truly recovered positionally against the Dutch interchanges. The big missed header at 30 minutes summed up his evening, a rare attacking contribution wasted.
7 – 0 drubbing would have been a real confidence – draining result, with another game just around the corner
The error that led to a goal reflected poor concentration more than lack of ability. From our perspective, he looked overwhelmed by the movement of Reijnders and Malen.”
After remaining unbeaten through their four internationals in September, this will have been a shattering blow to the Greece side’s confidence. They’ll have only 3 days to pick themselves up before a home tie on Monday night against Serbia, Mavropanos’ side still sitting second in the group thanks to that purple patch in September but no doubt reeling from their schooling last night.
West Ham fans will be hoping that Mavropanos can be part of a confidence – building resurrection by the national side next week so that he at least returns to east London in a slightly better frame of mind than he must be in just now.