Colombia and Greece will battle it out on Saturday in Group C, but both teams are worried about their striking power. Colombia are without star striker Radamel Falcao due to a serious knee injury, a player who has scored 20 goals in 51 appearances for his national team. Teofilo Gutierrez, who plays for River Plate in Argentina will have to fill in for Falcao, a daunting task for the 29-year-old forward. Gutierrez has scored 12 goals in 30 international appearances.
FC Porto's Jackson Martinez believes the 2014 Colombia team has more talent than the 1994 squad who went to the United States finals as one of the favourites but finished last in their group. "I think that it's one of the most evenly-matched groups at this World Cup," he said. "Ivory Coast have very experienced players with a lot of quality, Japan are always at the World Cup and cover every blade of grass, and Greece are tactically very strong. When you're at a World Cup, the first thing you say to yourself should be, 'We don't know how far we're going to go, but we do know how far we want to go'."
Greece, the surprising European champions in 2004, will be without prolific striker Kostas Mitroglou who has been fighting a knee injury since joining Fulham from Olympiakos. Veteran Georgios Karagounis will be the team captain once again, he is 36 years old and has 135 caps for his country. "Our main goal is to make it to the knockout rounds, which is something we have never done before," said Karagounis. "In order to do this, we have to take each game as it comes. The most important game for us is against Colombia. This is our first game and they are a dangerous team."
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Colombia win - 10/11
Draw - 23/10
Greece win - 4/1
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