West Ham United defender Konstantinos Mavropanos impressed as Greece defeated England 2-1 at Wembley Stadium last night thanks to a brace from former West Ham target Vangelis Pavlidis. 

The former Arsenal and Stuttgart defender was paired at the heart of defence alongside Konstantinos Koulierakis of VfL Wolfsburg, they both did very well to help keep Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Cole Palmer and co quiet for the majority of the match.

The match started in end-to-end fashion, but it was Greece that went the closest to opening the scoring, a brilliant goal-line clearance from Chelsea’s Levi Colwill denied Tasos Bakasetas from giving his side the lead.

Mavropanos thought he had given the Greeks the lead from the resulting corner, he headed the ball into the back of the net. However, the Hammers defenders celebrations were extremely short lived at the referee’s assistant had his flag up for offside.

Greece deservedly opened up the scoring four minutes after the restart through Pavlidis, who evaded a number of challenges before firing past Jordan Pickford. Giorgos Masouras and Pavlidis also had goals disallowed before Jude Bellingham levelled it up for the three lions.

But the game didn’t stay level for long, Vangelis scored his second of the night in the fourth minute of added time. A mix up and failure to clear the ball our of the defensive third allowed Pavlidis to find space in the box and fired past a hopeless Jordan Pickford.

Hammers fans will take a lot of positives from Mavropanos’ performance on his first ever match at Wembley, he was defensively solid and looked assured on the ball. This is something that he has struggled with at times this season, and is why he has lost his starting place at West Ham to Jean-Clair Todibo.