Hellas Football

Captain courageous Karagounis Greece defied the odds and advanced to the Quarter-Finals of the 2012 Euros with a 1-0 victory over Russia. Greece started their campaign against hosts Poland with a 1-1 draw in the first matchday of the tournament. They then put in a disappointing performance in against the Czech Republic 1-2. There was some hope left going into the final matchday against Russia with Greece requiring a victory as well as the other result in the group to go Greece’s way. The match against Russia was crucial for Greece to advance to the next stage of the tournament considering Greece failed to make an impact in the two previous major tournaments. Greece started the match on the backfoot with Russia creating most of the early chances but some great defending from the centre back pairing of Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kyriakos Papadopoulos kept us in the game and the score level. Greece slowly worked their way into the game after taking some time to settle and then...

The Save that Broke Our Hearts The 1994 World Cup should have been a great moment for Greece but it wasn’t, we lost all three games and didn’t score a goal but when the campaign for the 1998 World Cup came around we looked much different and much better. Against the very good teams of Croatia and Denmark at the time Greece fought hard and it was going to be settled with a game against Denmark in Athens at sold out OAKA. Greece had to win to get to France 98. The first half saw some chances for both teams but Peter Schmeichal made it look easy and the Danish efforts were off target. The second half would be a story for the ages though... many remember one chance that came to Alekos Alexandris at the end of the match but there were a few at both end before it. Nikos Dabizas actually hit the post early in the 2 nd half with a great header that Schmeichal knew little about it. Stratos Aposotolakis would sky a loose ball well over the goal when Schmeichal punched out a clearan...

Beautiful Portugal Our last major tournament that I remember was USA94 and that ended in heartache. The heartache of missing out on France 98 by a whisker still present in my mind, so going in to Euro 2004 I was hoping that the team would just be competitive in the group stages and not embarrass the nation on the big stage similar to what happened 10 years beforehand. First match, hosts Portugal, a tough opponent, sprinkled with superstars with a young gun in the making Ronaldo had me jittery before kick off. We played a simple 442 formation, each player relied on another but if you had offered me a 0-0 drab draw, a defensive masterclass then I'd of bitten your hand off to take it. BUT... what we saw was a team united in its desire to not only defend like their lives depended on it, but, contrary to what the media portrayed us as, play a bit of football and take it to this Portuguese side. Within the first 10 minutes, Karagounis scores! I couldn't believe my eyes!...

The Greek National team rose to fame after winning Euro 2004, but for many fans, the love affair with the up and down team started well before that. As a young teen I got on the wagon in 1993 after hearing Greece qualified for the World Cup in America. The tournament itself was amazing and to this day my favorite Mundial but Greece performed very badly thanks to horrible coaching, management and selections. Even in 1994, some of the video footageof the late Alketas Panagoulias screaming at the players is embarrassing and hard to watch. However, after the disaster I have great memories of the Greek team post USA 94 as the talents that didn’t get a chance to showcase their skills in Boston and Chicago came to the front and played some amazing football. Coach at the time was the recently passed Kostas Polyhorniou who would leave a great legacy as player and coach, most of the Greek team was locally based with only Nikos Machlas playing abroad in Holland and Georgios Donis at Blac...