Greece Loving Underdog Role
Jan Koller, the bald giant who plays forward for the Czech Republic, sat on the grass in Porto, Portugal, on Thursday, his boots off, his eyes glazed. He looked like Gulliver after being low-bridged by the Lilliputians, only these spoke Greek.
What else can you say about the last play of Koller’s last match of Euro 2004? It was one part punch line and one part sucker punch and certainly something you don’t see every day:
Greece advancing to the European Championship final on a walk-off corner kick.
On the final play of the first period of extra time, after 105 minutes of scoreless soccer, with referee Pierluigi Collina checking his watch and readying to sound his whistle, Vassilis Tsiartas knocked in a last-gasp corner. Czech midfielder Vladimir Smicer mistimed his defensive leap, the ball sliced over Smicer and there was Greek defender Traianos Dellas for the header and the goal and latest in a string of Euro results that look more like typographical errors.
Greece 1, Czech Republic 0.
And before that, it was: Greece 1, France 0.
And before that: Greece 2, Portugal 1.
Otto Rehhagel, the 65-year-old German who coaches the Greek team, called it “a miracle.”
Greece midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos told ITV television, “It’s a dream. It’s like we are sleeping and we don’t want to wake up.”
In a tournament you aren’t supposed to win without experience, tradition and pedigree, Sunday’s championship match in Lisbon will be played by two teams making their first appearance in a major final -- Greece and Portugal.
Seventeen days earlier in Porto, that is how Euro 2004 began. Greece against Portugal in the tournament opener.
Thirty matches later, we’re right back where we started. The first game and the last game, one and the same.
Greece won the first meeting but will begin the rematch as underdog. The Greeks won’t mind. In four of their five matches, the Greeks were cast in the same role.
In order, they beat Portugal, the tournament host; tied Spain, one of the tournament favorites; defeated France, the defending champion; and eliminated the Czech Republic, which began the semifinals undefeated and the high-scoring team in the competition.
They might not play the most attractive brand of soccer, but no one’s accusing the Greeks of backing into the final.
When they were favored, in the last Group A game against Russia, the Greeks lost, 2-1. It could have been 3-1, but Russia hit the post. Had that shot gone in and Greece lost by a 3-1 margin, Spain would have advanced to the quarterfinals instead of Greece. Hundreds of gallons of celebratory ouzo could have been spared.
Europeans have been stunned by the success of the Greeks, but here in the States, we’ve seen it all before.
They began the tournament as 50-1 longshots.
They don’t score much.
They aren’t pretty to watch.
They have no superstars.
But, they are well-coached, they defend like pit bulls and they play for each other. Through teamwork, effort and organization, they took out some of the biggest names in their sport.
Yes, the Greeks are the Detroit Pistons of European soccer.
It was quite a sight, watching clusters of Greek defenders grab and tug and pull on Koller’s jersey for 105 minutes, doing everything short of a red card to stop the 6-foot-7 Czech forward. Ordinarily, it is customary for players to exchange shirts after the final whistle. But the Greeks went after Koller’s as if they couldn’t wait.
It must have been painful viewing in Germany, watching a German coach taking a Greek team to the final by playing the way Germany used to, back when Germany contended for European championships.
The Germans went out of Euro 2004 in the first round, but Rehhagel, who previously coached at Werder Bremen, Kaiserslautern and Bayern Munich, among others, has seen the German style through to the last match. The uniforms are blue, and the names are longer, but after that the differences blur. Rehhagel’s team emphasizes discipline and precision on defense -- the Greek backline is a shot-blocking, header-winning machine -- and presses just enough on offense, waiting for a mistake.
It worked against France in the quarterfinals. French left back Bixente Lizarazu took the bait, taking himself out of the play that produced the match’s only goal. And it worked against the Czechs, even if took all of 105 minutes, and then some.
And, it has to be said, the Greeks got a little lucky in the semifinals.
A leg injury forced Pavel Nedved -- the best player in the Czech lineup and maybe the tournament -- to the sideline in the 40th minute.
His replacement?
Smicer, the man who would flinch on the game-deciding corner.
Greece also took advantage of a rule that will change at the end of Euro 2004, the “silver goal” rule. Under the “silver goal” concept, two teams tied at the end of regulation will play two 15-minute overtime periods. If one team is ahead at the end of the first 15-minute period, it is declared the winner. If the teams are tied after 15 minutes, they play another 15. If they remain tied after that, it’s on to penalty kicks.
UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, will scrap the concept for all its competitions after Sunday’s final.
Just the Czechs’ luck. All they had to do was kill off a few more seconds, clear one more corner and finish off the first extra period. Instead, they got caught on the wrong foot, at the wrong moment, in the wrong tournament. Silver goal for Greece, silver bullet to the Czech championship bid.
