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GREECE
Greece is officially one of the 32 participants in the World Cup next year in South Africa. They qualified tonight through a play-off victory against Ukraine. 0-0 in Athens, 1-0 in Donetsk.
I can't express how happy, relieved I am for qualifying tonight. It was a nail biting two match affair that could have gone either way. Considering our group when qualifying we shouldn't have made it to this stage. But we did and when the result needed to come they delivered. Not only did they secure qualification but a victory as well.
Our players are more or less the same from Euro 08 however of course with a few changes. Torosidis, Ninis, Fotakis, Tzorvas, Papastathopoulos are among the new bloods. Karagounis is now the captain and along with Katsouranis they hold the midfield. In defense we rely on Kyrgiakos and Moras with Spyropoulos and Torosidis as our wingers. And in attack well, golden boy Gekas and Charisteas are usually starters. But Samaras is getting a shot very recently and he played big tonight. Salpigidis compliments Samaras as the second striker.
Otto Rehhagel still in charge of the team (despite numerous Otto bashers, not including me though) incase you might ask. And we know at Euro 2008 we were abysmal with his old tactics. There were no surprises anymore, people knew us and nullified us.
But finally the man is having some balls and starts fielding in some young bloods and mixing them with experienced veterans. We are still a "defense first approach" team, but somehow we use it very effectively and that's been proven over two games with Ukraine. I sense some optimism in the way we have been playing lately and hope this carries on to next year.
I expect more stuff from this thread come next summer but for now, we are going to party!! :)
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/2494/greeceflag.gif (http://img695.imageshack.us/i/greeceflag.gif/)
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6291/ukrainehellas181120094b.jpg (http://img171.imageshack.us/i/ukrainehellas181120094b.jpg/)
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/9660/ukrainehellas181120096b.jpg (http://img256.imageshack.us/i/ukrainehellas181120096b.jpg/)
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/8565/ukrainehellas1811200918.jpg (http://img692.imageshack.us/i/ukrainehellas1811200918.jpg/)
uA - 1905
18-11-2009, 23:22
Well done neighbors.
muscularmatt
18-11-2009, 23:27
Well done Greece. They probably won't get past the first round.
I still dont think that is ever a wise thing to say about any team since 2004.Even if it was a complete fluke.
muscularmatt
19-11-2009, 02:18
You know I remember seeing 125-1 on Greece in the paper before Euro 2004, and thinking 'Hmmm, not bad'.
Still pissed off to this day I didn't put it on
Well done neighbors.
Thanks, much appreciated from you. Quite surprised how Turkey fell during the campaign, but then again you have Spain and an inform Bosnia, it was difficult. Was letting Terim go a good decision?
uA - 1905
27-11-2009, 02:00
Yeah, I think he lost the plot after leaving Fiorentina, and that was like 9 years ago. He's done shitly everywhere he's been since.
Greece's group for the World Cup, Group B.
Argentina, Nigeria, Korea, Greece
uA - 1905
04-12-2009, 21:25
Is that Tzorvas in your avatar? He was quite useless on Thursday. You better not have him in goal for Greece this summer. :ninja:
:lol: Yes, it is Tzorvas. Unfortunately he's probably the top rated goalkeeper for Greece now, ahead of Sifakis and veteran Chalkias. Life is difficult w/o Nikopolidis.
Hopefully in six months Tzorvas develops much more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThX-HayQvU - Alex Tzorvas' superb save against Aris. We all hope he continues this form to the World Cup.
Vaggelis Moras will be Rehhagel's sole concern in the upcoming clash against S. Korea, he will miss the match due to injury. Well, we still have Kyrgiakos!
Old news but Fernando Santos is our new coach, replacing Otto Rehhagel.
Anyway. Ioannis Amanatidis has retired from international football and shockingly so has Kyrgiakos and now Gekas. There must be something brewing within the squad. Surprisingly, all these players who retired play the club football in Germany. What the fuck is going? I wish I knew.
Dragonfly
09-09-2010, 20:00
Old news but Fernando Santos is our new coach, replacing Otto Rehhagel.
Anyway. Ioannis Amanatidis has retired from international football and shockingly so has Kyrgiakos and now Gekas. There must be something brewing within the squad. Surprisingly, all these players who retired play the club football in Germany. What the fuck is going? I wish I knew.
Your players, from what I've just read.
And by the way I made a mistake as Kyrgiakos obviously doesn't play in Germany. But still.
I am puzzled anyway, why did Gekas have to retire?
Your players, from what I've just read.
Hahaha! Nice one! :)
Qualifying straight to Euro 2012 has taken a step backwards with our draw against Latvia (1-1). If we beat Croatia at home next month then we go on top of the group and stand a good chance of qualifying straight if we can hold off Georgia away.
muscularmatt
13-09-2011, 20:05
Are Greece good now or what? I haven't watched them for ages, and they flip flop more than any other nation I've seen in world football.
We are officially in EURO 2012 - Group A with co-hosts Poland, Czech Republic and Russia.
This is the third European Championship that we get Russia. On a bright note, the first game of EURO 2012 will be between Poland and Greece. Bore-fest for most but I can only remember what happened the last time we opened up a European tournament ;)
Ok, so we're officially out of EURO 2012.
Our National Team gets dragged through the mud all the time by other supporters, commentators, and mostly, us. However, I think we can come out of this tournament with our heads held high. The lads played with spirit. Unfortunately, they bowed out to a team a class above; a team that may very well win the cup.
You know, I could go back and forth on this forum a lot and talk about how terrible X player is or how shit Y player looked today. What I like about the team is that we can, for the most part, rally behind the squad and watch them give their all.
In 3 months' time, we're going to revert to our club team-tinted commentary and the bickering will start fresh. I've been so proud to watch this team compete the last few weeks. It's been great to see OSFP fans praise Karagounis, PAO fans praise Torosidis and Maniatis, AEK fans praise Salpi, and all of us start to appreciate Samaras.
Thank you to the players and all involved for a ultimately successful tournament, take away Euro 04 and we have been complete duds at the other tournaments, this time we made the Quarter Finals and finally got out of the group stages! Scored every game and no matter what part of the planet you’re at you/we got to experience the tournament fever again.
Our team had to fight back most games which again, we haven't really experienced before, the poor referee calls against us, the Karagounis special Russia match, been in a Quarter Final and that moment Samaras equalised... priceless. Also Salpigidis became the first Greek player to ever score at a World Cup and Euro Championship! I love achievements like that.
I hope I speak for many when I say I can't wait for WC qualifying to begin.
Did any of your older players (like Karagounis or Katsouranis) announce their retirement from the national team?
IronCity
25-06-2012, 22:50
Did any of your older players (like Karagounis or Katsouranis) announce their retirement from the national team?
PlatoGK
Epictetus DF
Aristotle DF
"Chopper" Sophocles DF
Empedocles of Acragas DF
Plotinus MF
Epicurus MF
Heraklitus MF
Democritus MF
Socrates(capt) SS
Archimedes CF
Link: National Team Roster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophers'_Football_Mat ch)
Recent reports have Plotinus and Epicurus calling it quits because, much to contrary belief of fans, the motion of getting through the knock out phase and winning was a Zenonian paradox. Suppose Greece wants to win Euro2012. Before they can get there, They must get halfway there. Before they can get halfway there, they must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, they must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on. This description requires one to complete an infinite number of tasks, which Zeno maintains is an impossibility.
Link: Zeno's dichotomy paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#The_dichoto my_paradox)
Did any of your older players (like Karagounis or Katsouranis) announce their retirement from the national team?
Lyberopoulos and Chalkias have announced their retirement.
As for Kats and Karag, no official news yet. I expect Karagounis to play one more game at least to break the national team appearances record. Katsouranis for me has no more business with the team, I hope he calls it quits before our WC 2014 campaign starts. If not, Santos is definitely bringing him to Brasil should we get there. Oh that and he's been in dismal form for the country for 2-3 years now.
PlatoGK
Epictetus DF
Aristotle DF
"Chopper" Sophocles DF
Empedocles of Acragas DF
Plotinus MF
Epicurus MF
Heraklitus MF
Democritus MF
Socrates(capt) SS
Archimedes CF
Link: National Team Roster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophers'_Football_Mat ch)
Recent reports have Plotinus and Epicurus calling it quits because, much to contrary belief of fans, the motion of getting through the knock out phase and winning was a Zenonian paradox. Suppose Greece wants to win Euro2012. Before they can get there, They must get halfway there. Before they can get halfway there, they must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, they must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on. This description requires one to complete an infinite number of tasks, which Zeno maintains is an impossibility.
Link: Zeno's dichotomy paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#The_dichoto my_paradox)
:laugh:
Someone has been watching Monty Python!
Lyberopoulos and Chalkias have announced their retirement.
As for Kats and Karag, no official news yet. I expect Karagounis to play one more game at least to break the national team appearances record. Katsouranis for me has no more business with the team, I hope he calls it quits before our WC 2014 campaign starts. If not, Santos is definitely bringing him to Brasil should we get there. Oh that and he's been in dismal form for the country for 2-3 years now.
Shame to hear about Katsouranis, I remember him being a beast when playing for Benfica. Actually he was one of the few players I could tolerate from their team, despite being a bit of a cunt.
Karagounis lining up to become the country's most capped player against Bosnia. Katsouranis has been let go of Panathinaikos but retains his position in the squad. Hmmm, the familiar KK combo again.
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