Championship Manager 01 02 Greek Players
Viva Allor
The Greece national football team (Greek: Εθνική Ελλάδας, Ethniki Elladas) represents Greece in men's international football matches, and is controlled by the Hellenic Football Federation, the governing body for football in Greece. Starting in 2023, Greece play their home matches in Nea Filadelfeia, a suburb of Athens, at the newly built Agia Sophia Stadium. Greece is one of only ten national teams to have been crowned UEFA European Champions.
Greece had a small presence in international football. From the 1980s they have experienced the first taste, but not a banquet, of football achievement. Their first appearance in a major tournament was at UEFA Euro 1980 where they were knocked out in the group stage. Their qualification to the then eight-team UEFA European Championship gave them a position in the top eight European football nations that year. Greece did not qualify for another major tournament until the 1994 FIFA World Cup and after an undefeated qualifying campaign, they produced a poor performance in the finals, losing all three group matches without scoring.
UEFA Euro 2004 marked the highest point in Greece's football history when they won the tournament in only their second participation. Dismissed as rank outsiders before the tournament, Greece defeated some of the favourites in the competition including defending European champions France and hosts Portugal twice. During the tournament, Greece defeated the hosts in both the opening game of the tournaments and again in the final. Their triumph earned them a place in the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup.
In the decade after the 2004 victory, Greece qualified for the finals tournaments of all but one major competition entered, reaching the quarter-finals at the UEFA Euro 2012 and the round of 16 at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. During that period, they occupied a place in the top 20 of the FIFA World Rankings for all but four months, and reached an all-time high of eighth in the world from April to June 2008, as well as in October 2011.
In 1951, Greece also won the 1st edition of the Mediterranean Games men's football tournament, held in Alexandria, Egypt, defeating both Syria and the hosts Egypt on their way to the title.[11] The star of the Greece team was Nikos Lekatsas, who was the top goal scorer with 4 goals, a tally that includes a hat-trick against Syria.
During the following decades, Greece had passion but little international success in the sport, as the nation's economical and social situations after World War II did not allow for successful development of a national team.
At its best, Greece narrowly missed qualifying for two FIFA World Cup competitions: 1970 (despite a quality team, including some of its greatest-ever players, such as Mimis Domazos, Giorgos Sideris, Giorgos Koudas and Mimis Papaioannou), and 1978.
In the quarter-finals Greece faced off with the undefeated and reigning champions France. At 65 minutes Greece took the lead. Angelos Basinas played a perfect pass to captain Theodoros Zagorakis, who flicked the ball high in the air, past veteran French defender Bixente Lizarazu, and sent a perfect cross to Angelos Charisteas for the header and goal. Greece held on to win despite a late French onslaught, with close efforts by Thierry Henry, thus knocking France out of Euro 2004 and becoming the first team ever to defeat both the hosts and defending champions in the same tournament.[21]
Greece's victory shot them up in the FIFA World Rankings from 35th in June 2004 to 14th in July 2004. This is one of the largest upward moves in a single month in the top echelon of the rankings. The triumph of Greece at Euro 2004 is the biggest sporting achievement in the country's history for a team sport, along with the successes of the Greece national basketball team in the European Championships of 1987, 2005 and 2006 FIBA World Championship and the World Championship title of Greece women's national water polo team in 2011. The team has appeared on stamps and received medals from Konstantinos Stephanopoulos (the President of Greece), Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens, and an ecstatic ovation from the country's population which came out to see the team drive with the trophy from the Athens airport to the Panathenaic Stadium where the Greek political and religious leadership was awaiting them.[30][31][32][33] The Euro 2004 winners were selected as "World Team of the Year" at the 2005 Laureus World Sports Award for Team of the Year.[34]
In their last game, Greece defeated Georgia, finishing in fourth place, four points behind first-placed Ukraine, two behind Turkey, and a point behind Denmark. Throughout the match, fans in the Karaiskakis Stadium chanted the name of Otto Rehhagel in their utmost support and he said afterwards "Even if 10 years pass, part of my heart will be Greek".[36]
With its late-game comeback victory over Georgia in October 2011, Greece padded its historic football tournament rsum, most importantly by sealing an automatic berth into UEFA's 2012 European Football Championship tournament. For the second time in team history the national side won its qualifying group for a major football tournament without a single loss incurred, as Greece also went undefeated in 1994 World Cup qualifiers. Adding to its 1980, 2004 and 2008 Euro qualifying campaigns, the Georgia triumph marked the fifth time overall that Greece has won its qualification group for a major tournament. Although their tendency to produce positive results remained steady throughout qualifying, so too did the Greece proclivity to start games slowly and concede early goals. This habit would plague Greece through qualifying and eventually tarnish their Euro 2012 performances.
"Shades of 2004" was a commonly perceived theme regarding the buildup to Euro 2012 for Greece and their progression through the tournament. As in 2004 Greece was drawn into the same group as the host nation, Poland on this occasion, and also had the pressure of playing in the tournament's opening match. Two familiar foes from its 2004 championship run, Russia and Czech Republic, joined Greece and Poland in Group A on 2 December 2011 at the tournament's final draw in Kiev. Upon drawing the lowest-ranked teams from Pots 1 and 2 as well as the second-lowest from Pot 4, Greece's prospects of passing the group stage at Euro 2012 were given a boost.
The team appointed Claudio Ranieri as head coach in July 2014. He was sacked in November of the same year after a shocking home defeat to the Faroe Islands.[51] Sergio Markarin was appointed in his place, but he too has come under fire, after the team's terrible performances in the remaining UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying. The team's form after September 2014 proved to be abysmal, with no wins in over a year. Greece finished in bottom place in their Euro Qualifying group, earning just one victory against Hungary in the final round, and failing to qualify for the tournament. Greece, along with the Netherlands and Bosnia and Herzegovina were the only nations from Pot 1 not to qualify for the finals. Those three had taken part in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Incidentally, the three teams would also fail to qualify for the World Cup in 2018.
Greece had to start their UEFA Nations League in League C due to previously poor performance. Greece won and lost three games each to these opponents altogether, and only finished third in the Nations League and was unable to promote to League B when the UEFA revised the format.
Greece's qualification campaign for UEFA Euro 2020 commenced with the team being placed in Group J. Due to disappointing results, John van 't Schip decided not to call-up some of the leading members of the squad, such as Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kostas Manolas for their final matches. A more youthful Greek showed a massive improvement in their attacking and pressing style of play. In the final three games Greece achieved successive victories. Greece finished third in the final table but this was still not enough to earn a play-off spot.
Having been forced to remain in League C due to poor performance, Greece had to start its campaign on their quest to be promoted. Greece needed a win in the last game against Slovenia at home to achieve promotion to League B. The match ended on 0-0, with Greece failing to promote a second consecutive time, despite being unbeaten and having conceded just one goal.
Traditionally, Greece has spent most of its history playing its home matches in different stadiums primarily in or near Athens, but also in several other cities around the country. The home ground of the national team was the Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus, since its reconstruction in 2004 until 2017.[60]
Since their first international fixture in 1929 and for the next 33 years, Greece regularly used Leoforos Alexandras Stadium as their home ground. Their first home match away from it was played at the Nikos Goumas Stadium in 1962, while the Karaiskakis Stadium was used for the first time in 1964 when it was renovated. In 1966, Kaftanzoglio Stadium in Thessaloniki became the first stadium outside of the Athens area to be used. Since then all of these stadiums were alternately used until the early 1980s, while a few other stadiums were inaugurated by the national team as well such as Thessaloniki's Toumba Stadium and Kleanthis Vikelidis Stadium in 1975 and 1977 respectively. Greece also held matches at other home grounds outside of the two major cities in 1976, such as Kostas Davourlis Stadium in Patras and Anthi Karagianni Stadium in Kavala. In 1982, Georgios Kamaras Stadium was added to the list of home grounds for the national team, the first in Athens out of the three major stadiums.
On 16 November 1983, the newly built Athens Olympic Stadium, to date the largest stadium in the country, housed the national team for the first time in a qualifier for UEFA Euro 1984 against Denmark. It served as the primary home ground for the team for the rest of the 1980s and the 1990s, until 2001 when it was closed for renovations. Meanwhile, a large number of matches were held in various stadiums including old choices and some new ones in provincial cities all over the country, something that did not change until the early 2000s, when the Athens Olympic Stadium was almost abandoned. From the start of 2000 until the qualifiers games of Euro 2004, the Greek National Team used Leoforos Alexandras Stadium as its home. Since 2004 Greece has mainly used Karaiskakis Stadium, with very few of Greece's matches being played in other stadiums. They returned to OAKA in 2018 for a friendly against Switzerland and announced they would play their home matches for the new UEFA Nations League there, as well.[61] For the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers, they were slated to split time between OAKA in Athens, and the Pankritio Stadium in Heraklion on the island of Crete, but with the latter requiring upgrades to be fit for FIFA standards, the entire campaign was held in Athens. They remained at OAKA until 2021, before making a temporary move to the Georgios Kamaras Stadium in late 2021 for the UEFA Nations League campaign, also hosting two matches in Volos.
d3342ee215