Greece revive the spirit of '04

Greece's first goal in Bloemfontein on
Thursday against Nigeria was historic as their first in a FIFA World
Cup, and their second was even more precious as it handed them their
only points in five finals matches. The 2-1 victory was also the first
come-from-behind win at South Africa 2010, and, more importantly for the
2004 European champions, it put them solidly back into Group B
reckoning.The Greeks are now level with their first match
conquerors, Korea Republic, on three points with table-topping
Argentina, on six, up next for them. With veteran coach Otto Rehhagel
steering the ship, and with some momentum behind them, Greece are
confident that results in the final group matches will go their way and
allow them to sneak into the last 16.After a match that saw
Nigeria reduced to 10 men for the last hour, the Europeans expressed joy
at breaking their duck, but they were keeping their feet firmly on the
ground. "It is an historic and important win for Greek football and the
nation," Dimitrios Salpingidis, scorer of Greece's first goal after over
400 minutes of finals football, told FIFA. "I am
extremely happy to be the one to do it, but I did not think about it at
the time. In the match, I was honestly just focused on teamwork and the
final score. But when the match ended, I thought about how important it
was."Georgios Samaras, who was brought on by Rehhagel as a
first-half substitute to up the attacking quotient, said the mood in the
team's locker room was not as celebratory as one might have thought.
"It is a great moment for us, but it's no time for celebration. We are
happy and delighted for sure, but this is not a party. We will go back
to Durban and start working on the next match. I think in the end,
because we pushed ourselves really hard, that we deserved to win the
game. And that's what matters."Many of the players said that they
had been stung by the opening 2-0 loss to the Koreans, and that they
were determined to show a different side against the Super Eagles. Kalu
Uche's opener in the 16th minute was undoubtedly a shock, but did not
knock them out of their stride. "We were poised and had a good attitude
from the start," said Konstantinos Katsouranis, a veteran of that famous
European triumph six years ago. "Even after going behind, we wanted to
show that we had strength and were tough enough to come back. And we
still have the ability to stay focused and organised like we did in
2004."
Greece revive the spirit of '04 Quote

Because
some of the players are veterans from 2004, we have the soul of a
champion in this team
Greece revive the spirit of '04 Quote_reverse

Alexandros
Tziolis

The
shadow of that shock triumph in Portugal was also on the mind of
Alexandros Tziolis, who said that their success was still feeding the
confidence of the squad, which retains five survivors from UEFA EURO
2004. "Because some of the players are veterans from 2004, we have the
soul of a champion in this team. Today's match you saw a different team,
and we had more passion and physicality. We knew it was do-or-die, and
there was more pressure on us to come out and try to win. But we dealt
with that and finally got our goals in the World Cup."Samaras
concluded that the team never considered that they might continue to
struggle at the highest level. "I think the game against South Korea was
one of those things where nothing went right," he said. "It was not our
day, but we never got negative and we always believe in ourselves. No
matter about the people that criticise, we always fight for each other
and our confidence is always really high. We never got down, even after
the goal. We showed what great character we have."