Montenegro rallies past Cyprus 2-1 as Osmajic strikes late

Marcus Edwards put Cyprus ahead with a strike from outside the box that curled in at the far post, just a minute after rattling the woodwork. It looked like the blow that would undo the dominance Montenegro had shown from the start, but the hosts answered back and came away with a 2-1 win at Podgorica City Stadium in the UEFA Nations League.

The match followed a clear script: Montenegro pushed and pushed and pushed, and Cyprus held firm until, against the run of play, it went ahead. The first half ended scoreless even though the hosts controlled the entire pitch: Nikola Krstovic gave an early warning with a shot that clanged off the crossbar in the 14th minute and created several more chances between corners and runs down the flank, but the finishing touch was missing before the break.

The turning point in the second half

Right after the restart, Cyprus landed two blows in quick succession: in the 53rd minute Marcus Edwards hit the post, and on the very next play, in the 54th minute, he made no mistake with his left foot from outside the area to make it 0-1, assisted by Nick Tsaroulla. The lead didn't last long: in the 63rd minute Nick Tsaroulla brought down Marko Vesovic inside the box for a penalty, and two minutes later, in the 65th, Nikola Krstovic converted it to level the score.

With the game open again, Montenegro kept pressing and was rewarded late on. In the 85th minute, Milutin Osmajic finished from close range, low and to the corner, after a flick-on header from Krstovic, sealing the final 2-1.

Dominance backed by numbers

The stats confirm what was visible on the field: Montenegro was far superior in possession and attacking volume, though it couldn't fully translate that edge into shots on target.

According to our xG estimate calculated from the shots taken in the match, Montenegro generated 2.976 expected goals to Cyprus's 1.516, a gap that backs up the territorial dominance but also makes clear the result was far from a foregone conclusion: with those numbers, a draw or even an away win wouldn't have been an unusual outcome.

What it means in the standings

The win puts Montenegro in second place in Group C2, with 3 points from one match played, level with Armenia, which leads with the same record. Cyprus, meanwhile, comes away from this opening matchday empty handed. With just one game played by each side, the table still says little, but the start gives Montenegro a psychological cushion that Cyprus will have to claw back.

For the hosts, the result confirms persistence as a virtue: they created chances, missed some, absorbed a blow from an opponent that struck when least expected, and still found a way to turn it around with a penalty and a header-assisted finish in the closing minutes. For Cyprus, the consolation is having competed on the counterattack against a rival that doubled them up in possession and shots, though in the end the weight of that dominance took its toll.