Greece’s new era begins with eyes on Euro 2012

For many of you, your first decent memory of the Greek national football team came in 2002 when, in an indifferent game for us – we had already been knocked out by Germany and England – we managed to hold a 2-1 win until the memorable last minute free kick by David Beckham.

The rest of the world was shocked after our away win in Spain, during the qualifying campaign of Euro 2004, and our consecutive surprises against Portugal twice, France, Spain, and Czech Republic that led Greece, until then without a single point in final phases of major national tournaments, to the top of Europe.

Six years later, after a disappointing performance in Euro 2008 and an average performance in the World Cup 2010, Greece are in a new era, as Fernando Santos has replaced aging “Rehakles” (Otto Rehaggel) on the bench. The Portuguese manager has worked at Greek clubs for more than five years and is distinctly aware of the inherent problems of Greek football.

He promised a new era, a more attacking, successful style of game and in the first exhibition against Serbia, Greece played a straightforward diamond 4-4-2 formation, for the first time since 2001. Sotiris Ninis is going to be the main focus of the team playing behind the two strikers, and Santos is expected to give him a leading role after Rehaggel did not show much trust in the youngster during the World Cup 2010.

Offensively, Greece has produced several good players, but none equal to the caliber of Demis Nikolaidis or Vassilis Tsiartas or Zissis Vryzas and so on. Santos will choose between Theofanis Gekas, Dimitris Salpingidis and Georgios Samaras, whilst in midfield apart from Ninis, there are few attacking-minded players, most notably Vasilis Torosidis who started as a right midfielder, although he is an attacking full back.

The main positives of the Greek team continue to be the defensive qualities. Sokratis Papastathopoulos has earned a transfer to AC Milan, where he is going to play as a starting right back or as an agile centre back, Giourkas Seitaridis has showed promising signs of returning to form in the first matches of Panathinaikos for the new season and we never lacked strong and tall defenders with poor technique but great levels of commitment (Sotis anyone?).

So, all in all Greece seems to have the quality to fight with Croatia for the qualifying spot to the Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland. But the main barrier to overcome will be the change of style, as we haven’t played attacking football at national level for more than 8 years now…

(pic via tsevis on Flickr)

Euro 2012, Europe, Greece, Sotiris Ninis