A Knee away from the 1998 World Cup
A Knee away from the 1998 World Cup By Greg Gavalas Coming of what would have been for the Ethniki in World Cup Qualifications, Mexico 70 was close with a very good team, and as mentioned in that part, until 1994, Greece had seldom even got close to World Cup Qualification however the next opportunity to reach the grandest stage would happen in just the next campaign which was for the 1998 World Cup to be held in France. Coming off the 1994 World Cup itself, Greece would form a new face under coach Kostas Polychroniou, the vast majority of the team was also new with younger and very skilful players who would also go through their first full qualifying campaign for Euro 96 previously. After a bright start to that campaign, the Ethniki would fall short of qualification to Russia and Scotland, however the team played nice football and were a totally different squad to that of Alketas Panagoulias in 93/94, even scoring 23 goals for the 96 campaign vs 10 for the 94 campaign. Kostas Polychro...