Greece
Greece - Group C (Colombia, Ivory Coast, Japan)
Qualifying for the third time for the World Cup, Greece hopes to defend their way into the tourney, literally. They are masters of 1-0 results which showed in their qualifying campaign. The unexpected winners of Euro 2004 would be optimistic to to do just enough to qualify from the most open group of the tourney
Profile - Defensive Masters
Despite their European consistency, they couldn't make much impact on World Football, despite what their ranking suggests. Most of the credit for their success goes to the defense and it has become a habit for Greece to keep clean sheets. But their inability to consistently score has become their Achilles heel in major tourneys, especially when the opposition manages to break their defense
Confederation: UEFA (Europe)
Coach: Fernando Santos (POR)
FIFA Ranking: 10 (8-May-2014)
Nickname: Galenolefki (Sky blue-white)
Key Players: Karagounis, Samaras, Salpingidis
Legends: Nikopolidis, Zagorakis
History - Unexpected Euro Triumph
When Greece beat Portugal to lift Euro 2004 trophy, the victory was the least anticipated. No one foresaw that the minnow of European Football would defeat defending champions France and hosts Portugal, twice. Apart from that, they never managed to excite anyone. They cruised to qualify for their third world cup with just a single loss and a draw both to eventual Group winner Bosnia
Prospects - Doors are Open
If they are to compete with their opponents of the group, they need to polish their goal scoring skills. This could be their golden chance to progress to knockout stages and none of the teams in Group A look menacing enough
Squad
Goalkeepers:
Orestis Karnezis (Granada), Panagiotis Glykos (PAOK), Stefanos Kapino (Panathinaikos)
Defenders:
Kostas Manolas (Olympiacos), Giannis Maniatis (Olympiacos), Jose Holebas (Olympiacos), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Borussia Dortmund), Giorgios Tzavellas (PAOK), Loukas Vyntra (Levante), Vasilis Torosidis (Roma), Vangelis Moras (Verona)
Midfielders:
Alexandros Tziolis (Kayserispor), Andreas Samaris (Olympiacos), Kostas Katsouranis (PAOK), Giorgos Karagounis (Fulham), Panagiotis Tachtsidis (Torino), Ioannis Fetfatzidis (Genoa), Lazaros Christodoulopoulos (Bologna) Panagiotis Kone (Bologna)
Forwards:
Dimitris Salpingidis (PAOK), Giorgios Samaras (Celtic), Kostas Mitroglou (Fulham), Theofanis Gekas (Konyaspor)
Fixtures
Colombia vs Greece on June 14 at Belo Horizonte
Greece vs Ivory Coast on June 24 at Fortaleza
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
No comments :
Post a Comment