Post USA 94 – Euro 96 Qualifying Part 1

Post USA 94 – Euro 96 Qualifying Part 1

By Greg Gavalas

Recently the story about the Ethniki and their run for the 1994 World Cup conjured huge interest and brought back many good and bad memories for Greeks all over the world, the conclusion came with many things to point at, one of those was the players picked and we dove into the players available at the time who I am sure would have done a better job than what ultimately was a humiliation on the grandest stage.

On return to Greece, Alektas Panagoulias stepped down from the Ethniki coaching job for the last time, he receiving unprecedented backlash for the way he and the Greek Football Federation managed the whole World Cup campaign in the US, personally I think this was warranted, not only was the opportunity to showcase our real talent completely wasted but as Greeks we faced backlash and embarrassment for some time, especially from those who don’t follow Greek Football and our players.

Kostas Polychroniou would be the man to take the role from Alketas and the task at hand was the UEFA Euro 96 qualification campaign.

Polychroniou himself had played for Greece from 1957 to 67 and captained the team a few times in his 27 caps, a one man club player at Olympiakos, the 57 year old at the time, he quickly put a talented group of players together who would go through an action filled campaign.

Group draw

With Euro 96 being held in England, the draw took place on January 24 1994 in Manchester, at this point Greece was in pot 2 and would be drawn in group 8 with Russia from pot 1, Scotland from pot 3, Finland from pot 4, Faroe Islands from pot 5 and San Marino from pot 6.

Russia would once again stand in the way of the Ethniki however the outcome would be different in 1995 whilst Scotland and Finland would also be tough opponents, the top two would go through to the Championships.

Game 1 – Bright start vs Faroes 

Greece would start their campaign away to the Faroe Islands on the 7th of September, a little over two months since the Nigeria loss in Boston, gone from the line up and squad were the majority of the aging group.

In the line-up were the likes of Alekos Alexandris, Vassilis Tsiartas, Christos Kostis and Dimitris Saravakos would get his last cap for Greece and score an absolute screamer, even better than the one he scored against the same team in the World Cup qualifiers.

Minas Hatzidis would play a great game in his last cap for the Ethniki and in a USA 94 tribute would put a great cross in for Giotis Tsalouhidis who headed home to make it 2-0. 

Alexandris would score a thunder shot to make it 3-0 and score his first goal for Greece. More good work from Hantzidis would set up Alexandris to double his international tally in seven minutes.

Dimitris Markos would come on and set up Tsalouhidis for Greece’s 5th goal after Markos had a wonderful goal disallowed earlier on.

Making his debut for Greece in this game was one Theo Zagorakis who would feature heavily going forward.

Playing at the same time Scotland would register an important win away to Finland 2-0.

Game 2 – Fine form vs the Fins in Thessaloniki

Game two against Finland at the Kaftanzoglio would come at a good time as the Fins were down in form, Polychroniou would deputise Nikos Dabizas in defence, Michalis Kasapis would play at left back and make that his position for years to come. 

Markos would show his worth again, opening the scoring in the first half, off a Tsiartas corner.

Another debutant, Daniel Batista, would open his account to make it 2-0 as Greece played nice attacking football and Nikos Machlas would score a brace to top off a 4-0 thumping.

Scotland and Russia would record big wins over the Faroe Islands and San Marino at the same time.

Game 3 – Chances a plenty vs San Marino

Greece was now playing their best football in some time and were a very different looking team compared to earlier in the year with the combinations of Zagorakis, Tsiartas, Kasapis, Giorgos Toursounidis and Zisis Vryzas connecting well.

Machlas would open the score at the OAKA with a beautiful bicycle kick.

Greece would miss many chances and to top it off, Tsiartas would send his penalty kick to the post after Toursounidis won a penalty.

Kostas Frantzeskos would stamp a wonderful free kick goal towards the end of the match for the final 2-0.

At the same time Finland were big winners over the Faroe Islands whilst an important match in Glasgow saw Scotland and Russia draw 1-1.

Game 4 – Big Test and Big Win

Greece’s last match of a tumultuous year was a hard and critical one, at home (OAKA) to Scotland, who along with Russia was the other big challenge for qualification.

Due to injuries, Michalis Vlahos would start in defence in just his second cap and Nikos Noplias who featured heavily in the 1994 World Cup campaign was also brought back in for the first time since then.

The Ethniki would get a great start when Alexandris was brought down in the box and a penalty was awarded, in a real “Déjà vu” moment, Startos Apostolakis would step up and score an identical penalty to the one he scored in Greece’s big win over Hungary the previous year.

Scotland would dominate possession after the goal but it was the Ethniki who had the chances to score and were unlucky not to through Machlas and Toursounidis.

In the second half Greece would play even better and really poor on the pressure only to miss many chances at a second goal. The Scots pushed at the end and a challenge on Chelsea forward, John Spencer by Apostolakis in the box was very lucky to not be given as a penalty.

Full time would come and the win was a sweet end to the year for fans and players who had seen it all in 1994.

At the time of the win, Greece became a favourite to be at the European Championships, they lead the table with 12 points from 4 matches, whilst Scotland with as many matches were on 7 points, likewise Finland with 6 points. Russia had only played 2 matches.

1995

Polychroniou and his team started the New Year with a series of friendlies, positives results saw wins over Cyprus 3-2, a 1-0 win over 1994 World Cup Quarter Finalists, Romania in Kalamata and the final of the friendly matches saw Switzerland deny the Greeks a win in Athens with a 1-1 draw.

All in all the feeling was good going into the big match with Russia, to be played at the Kaftanziogio stadium in Thessaloniki.

The Russians themselves were coming off a 0-0 home draw with Scotland, whilst Finland had won 2-0 away to San Marino, with these results, Greece had a big lead in the standings, 3 clear of Finland who had played an extra game, 4 clear of Scotland who also had an extra game on Hellas and Russia was 7 points behind Greece but with a game in hand.

Game 5 – Winning streak comes to a crashing end via some Russian Revenge

There was a real buzz in Thessaloniki for the match with Russia, the game had a real feeling to it given the two teams had met only in the last campaign for the World Cup, Greece was in good form, 7 games undefeated and the last loss was against Nigeria in Boston, the team was also scoring goals at free will and had scored more goals in 4 games vs the whole World Cup campaign previously.

I think it’s fair to say everyone underestimated the determination and revenge the Russians were looking for in this match and they started very strong, so strong that Yiannis Kalitzakis would find himself on the end of a red card only 26 minutes after taking down the Russian striker who was through on goals, this set the team back and after a terrible tackle from Dabizas resulted in a Russian free kick just outside the box, Yuriy Nikiforov blasted his free kick past Ilias Atmantzidis in goals in the 37th minute.

Greece really struggled in attack and whilst the Russians kept creating, Greece would go close to an equalizer through Toursounidis but his shot was saved well by Dimitry Kharin. 

The Russians dazzled in attack with many quick one two passes that were causing the Greek defence hell and with the Greek style of diving tackles it played into the Russians hands.

The game would end badly for the Ethniki, in the 78th minute, Zagorakis would score an own goal and after kick off Vladimir Beschastnykh would make it 3-0 which brought the camp back down to earth and back to the drawing board for Polychroniou.

At the same time Scotland and Finland had easy wins over San Marino and the Faroe Islands.

Half Way Mark

Half way through the campaign and it was now a four way battle for the top two spots, the loss to Russia was costly for the Ethniki who now lost their advantage just like that (Russia and Scotland had played each other twice by now also), and after Russia’s easy win over the Faroe’s the standings looked like this

Greece – 12 pts (5 games)

Finland – 12 pts (6 games)

Russia – 11 pts (5 games)

Scotland – 11 pots (5 games)

Hellas Football

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