Greece and Ajax striker Angelos Charisteas is a major doubt for Saturday's vital World Cup Europe Zone Group 2 qualifier against Denmark. The AFC Ajax forward suffered a head injury on UEFA Champions League duty last week, after being involved a collision of heads with Arsenal Fc’s Kolo Toure.

"It looks like there's a 99 per cent chance he won't be playing," said a team spokesman.

With Ukraine having already qualified as winners of Group 2, Greece are locked in a battle for the second-spot with Turkey and Denmark.

Turkey are currently on 20 points but have played a game more than Greece, who are two points behind Turkey on 18 points, and Denmark are two points behind them on 16 points.

Greece are due to play Denmark on Saturday in Copenhagen. A win for the Greek’s will take them above Turkey, and into second-spot of Group 2. A loss for Denmark against the Greeks will mean that they cannot qualify for the finals next summer.

A win for Denmark will leave the door open for any of the three teams to be able to qualify on the final day of matches, for a play-off place.

Both Denmark, and Turkey are playing their last qualifying matches away. Denmark travel to Kazakhstan, and Turkey are to face Albania in Tirana. Greece, on the other hand, have a home match against Georgia to contend with.

If Charisteas is ruled out, he is likely to be replaced by Nikolaos Lyberopoulos, nick-named “Lybe”, from AEK Athens.

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