Scotland showed no sign of nerves early on at Hampden Park, and it was not long before the hosts produced the first shot on target of the game as Scott McTominay, the matchwinner on Thursday in Piraeus, forced Konstantinos Tzolakis into a save after being fed by Kenny McLean.
Against the run of play however, the visitors went in front on 20 minutes, winning the ball from Craig Gordon’s long goal kick before Konstantinos Karetsas fed Georgios Vagiannidis, whose cutback was swept home excellently by Giannis Konstantelias in acres of space.
Tzolakis subsequently stood up tall just after the half-hour mark to thwart John McGinn, but apart from that moment, Greece were able to keep Scotland at arm’s length before edging ahead in the tie just before half-time.
Ryan Christie’s wayward ball allowed Ivan Jovanovic’s side to regain possession and they duly advanced, with Dimitris Giannoulis picking out Konstantelias with a square pass.
The opening goalscorer must have been tempted to try and double his tally for the evening, but he instead took the sensible option of laying the ball off for 17-year-old Karasetas, who curled home superbly.
Steve Clarke will have wanted to relay some messages at the break, but whatever he said did not work, as within 13 seconds of the restart, Scotland had conceded again.
Another poor Christie pass was intercepted by Konstantelias, with statuesque defending allowing the Greece attacking midfielder to find Christos Tzolis, who had far too much time to slot past Craig Gordon.
Karetsas was soon not too far away from making it 4-0 as the home supporters expressed their displeasure at both what they were witnessing and the substitution of Billy Gilmour, who was taken off as part of a triple change by Clarke.
Although the trio of introductions brought about some improvement from Scotland, John Souttar’s clearance off the line from Vangelis Pavlidis’ dink prevented the scoreline from being even more emphatic, while Lewis Ferguson, one of the three who had just come on, was lucky not to have been sent off for several cynical fouls.
In a contest that somewhat petered out, only three of Greece’s last 19 internationals have seen both teams score in normal time, and they will now head into the summer with a spring in their step ahead of friendlies against Slovakia and Bulgaria, while the mood could not be more different in the Scotland camp.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Giannis Konstantelias (Greece)