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October 17, 2004
Welcome to Hellas
IAN HAWKEY
Three English clubs travel to Greece this week to face a nation that has lost its way since its Euro 2004 win
Omonia Square in Athens should be quite a spectacle come the middle of the week. It is seldom tranquil, its motorists conforming to Mediterranean stereotype, its carousers confirming the city’s flexible definition of an early night.
On Wednesday night they’ll have company. Arsenal will have completed their Champions League engagement with Panathinaikos; in the Uefa Cup, Middlesbrough will be gearing up to meet Egaleo, and Newcastle United play Panionios.
Hence the observation from one weary Athenian that Uefa has decided to organise the ouzo Olympiad for 48 hours. What this peculiar mesh of fixtures does mean is heightened security in a city still raising its eyebrows at the bill for hosting the Olympics, and still wondering what happened to its most remarkable champions.
Arsenal, Newcastle and Boro are heading to the country that holds the title of Europe’s leading football nation, although they could be forgiven for not regarding their trips with trepidation.
Since Greece lifted the European Championship, they are doing nothing to correct the suspicion that events in Portugal in June and July were a flash in the pantheon.
The nation that knocked France and the Czech Republic out of Euro 2004 and twice beat Portugal is already in danger of missing the first opportunity to parade its new status. Greece have spent the past seven days gazing up at their World Cup qualifying opponents from sixth position in Group Two. Georgia have twice as many points (four) as Otto Rehhagel’s squad, and at an even more uncomfortable distance are neighbours with whom Greece has an edgy relationship.
There were disturbances in Greek cities after they lost to Albania last month (most of the sufferers were Albanian immigrants) and the temperature was barely lowered with Turkey the next visitors. That was a goalless draw.
Last weekend Greece scraped another point, coming back from a goal down to draw 1-1 with Ukraine in Kiev, the equaliser scored by a footballer who began the season technically unemployed. Vassilios Tsiartas, 32, had been training with a Third Division team, having left AEK Athens in the summer.
Greece are yet to play Denmark, on paper the strongest of their qualifying opponents. All of which leaves the optimistic chorus of players, officials and Rehhagel after Euro 2004 sounding rather empty. The triumph in Lisbon on July 4 was supposed to mark a renaissance for the Greek game; it was to launch careers. “Clubs around Europe will be interested in Greek players now,” predicted Stelios Giannakopoulos of Bolton Wanderers. Hardly.
Porto did sign the full-back Giourkas Seitaridis, the Most Valuable Player in Portugal, while the Greece captain, Theo Zagorakis, was snapped up by the mid-table Italian side Bologna. Olympiakos took goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis from Panathinaikos, something of a local coup, although his form has been patchy in recent weeks.
Rehhagel has fallen most startlingly from grace, criticised heavily for the sloppy showings in the national team’s four matches since — Greece have won none of them — and conscious that the style he drilled into the team was never likely to offer aesthetic compensations in the event of sudden decline.
The 65-year-old may already be inclined to look back at the fork in his career after Euro 2004. He had the chance to manage his native Germany, but stuck with his miracle Greeks, the 80-1 outsiders when Euro 2004 began. Those of his players employed in Europe’s big leagues remain stuck in their ruts, returned to obscurity. Going into the weekend, Giorgios Karagounis had not started a match at Internazionale; nor had striker Angelos Charisteas at Werder Bremen. Giannakopoulos had made the first XI twice at Bolton, as had Traianos Dellas at Roma.
One Greek player did change his status dramatically after the Portugal triumph: Demis Nikolaidis turned from centre-forward to board member at AEK Athens, where his main job will be side-stepping the bailiffs, the club having been close to bankruptcy. AEK are not alone in that. A stern audit of Greek club football would detect lively economies only at Olympiakos, serial domestic champions until last season, and Panathinaikos, holders of the domestic Double. Olympiakos did, however, unearth the funds to pay Rivaldo’s salary, an investment with benefits so far in his form and box-office pull.
Olympiakos are among the beneficiaries of the summer’s Olympic Games, too, with their rebuilt Karaiskaki stadium. AEK’s tenancy of the Olympic stadium is more complex: they had sold 15,000 season tickets by the beginning of the season, but will face high maintenance costs once they move into their new home before the end of the year. Figures from the first month of the domestic campaign show crowds are up, one benefit of the national team’s summer success.
A big Athens crowd can intimidate. Witness the strength that Olympiakos, with their sturdy home record in Europe, gain from theirs. Panathinaikos used to have some of the same aura in continental competitions, although it failed them last season, when Manchester United won there and Rangers took a point.
Panathinaikos have beaten Rosenberg in this season’s Champions League, but last week they changed head coach, relieving Israeli Itzhak Shum of the job despite a 100% record in the league so far, replacing him with the Czech Zdenek Scasny.
For those Arsenal survivors from the 2001-02 Champions League campaign, Wednesday’s assignment will stir vivid memories. Thierry Henry finished the 1-0 first-phase defeat in Athens in a state of high anxiety, arguing with opponents whom he perceived to have been conning the referee, with match officials and even with a policeman.
Egaleo and Middlesbrough have no such form. Both are Uefa Cup debutants, the Greeks a model of sound low-budget organisation and squad stability. Their footballers seldom make enough impression on Rehhagel to be elevated to the national team, but they had enough about them to beat Serie A’s Udinese for a place in the Uefa Cup’s inaugural group phase.
Newcastle, for whom Nicky Butt is suspended, face a club of greater pedigree, Panionios having reached the quarter- finals of the old Cup Winners’ Cup six years ago. They have no European champions among them, although opponents are advised to be wary of the Uruguayan midfielder Martin Parodi’s work at set pieces.
Athens awaits the English and hopes they might stumble across relics from Greek football’s brief imperial era of June and July.
Welcome to Hellas
IAN HAWKEY
Three English clubs travel to Greece this week to face a nation that has lost its way since its Euro 2004 win
Omonia Square in Athens should be quite a spectacle come the middle of the week. It is seldom tranquil, its motorists conforming to Mediterranean stereotype, its carousers confirming the city’s flexible definition of an early night.
On Wednesday night they’ll have company. Arsenal will have completed their Champions League engagement with Panathinaikos; in the Uefa Cup, Middlesbrough will be gearing up to meet Egaleo, and Newcastle United play Panionios.
Hence the observation from one weary Athenian that Uefa has decided to organise the ouzo Olympiad for 48 hours. What this peculiar mesh of fixtures does mean is heightened security in a city still raising its eyebrows at the bill for hosting the Olympics, and still wondering what happened to its most remarkable champions.
Arsenal, Newcastle and Boro are heading to the country that holds the title of Europe’s leading football nation, although they could be forgiven for not regarding their trips with trepidation.
Since Greece lifted the European Championship, they are doing nothing to correct the suspicion that events in Portugal in June and July were a flash in the pantheon.
The nation that knocked France and the Czech Republic out of Euro 2004 and twice beat Portugal is already in danger of missing the first opportunity to parade its new status. Greece have spent the past seven days gazing up at their World Cup qualifying opponents from sixth position in Group Two. Georgia have twice as many points (four) as Otto Rehhagel’s squad, and at an even more uncomfortable distance are neighbours with whom Greece has an edgy relationship.
There were disturbances in Greek cities after they lost to Albania last month (most of the sufferers were Albanian immigrants) and the temperature was barely lowered with Turkey the next visitors. That was a goalless draw.
Last weekend Greece scraped another point, coming back from a goal down to draw 1-1 with Ukraine in Kiev, the equaliser scored by a footballer who began the season technically unemployed. Vassilios Tsiartas, 32, had been training with a Third Division team, having left AEK Athens in the summer.
Greece are yet to play Denmark, on paper the strongest of their qualifying opponents. All of which leaves the optimistic chorus of players, officials and Rehhagel after Euro 2004 sounding rather empty. The triumph in Lisbon on July 4 was supposed to mark a renaissance for the Greek game; it was to launch careers. “Clubs around Europe will be interested in Greek players now,” predicted Stelios Giannakopoulos of Bolton Wanderers. Hardly.
Porto did sign the full-back Giourkas Seitaridis, the Most Valuable Player in Portugal, while the Greece captain, Theo Zagorakis, was snapped up by the mid-table Italian side Bologna. Olympiakos took goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis from Panathinaikos, something of a local coup, although his form has been patchy in recent weeks.
Rehhagel has fallen most startlingly from grace, criticised heavily for the sloppy showings in the national team’s four matches since — Greece have won none of them — and conscious that the style he drilled into the team was never likely to offer aesthetic compensations in the event of sudden decline.
The 65-year-old may already be inclined to look back at the fork in his career after Euro 2004. He had the chance to manage his native Germany, but stuck with his miracle Greeks, the 80-1 outsiders when Euro 2004 began. Those of his players employed in Europe’s big leagues remain stuck in their ruts, returned to obscurity. Going into the weekend, Giorgios Karagounis had not started a match at Internazionale; nor had striker Angelos Charisteas at Werder Bremen. Giannakopoulos had made the first XI twice at Bolton, as had Traianos Dellas at Roma.
One Greek player did change his status dramatically after the Portugal triumph: Demis Nikolaidis turned from centre-forward to board member at AEK Athens, where his main job will be side-stepping the bailiffs, the club having been close to bankruptcy. AEK are not alone in that. A stern audit of Greek club football would detect lively economies only at Olympiakos, serial domestic champions until last season, and Panathinaikos, holders of the domestic Double. Olympiakos did, however, unearth the funds to pay Rivaldo’s salary, an investment with benefits so far in his form and box-office pull.
Olympiakos are among the beneficiaries of the summer’s Olympic Games, too, with their rebuilt Karaiskaki stadium. AEK’s tenancy of the Olympic stadium is more complex: they had sold 15,000 season tickets by the beginning of the season, but will face high maintenance costs once they move into their new home before the end of the year. Figures from the first month of the domestic campaign show crowds are up, one benefit of the national team’s summer success.
A big Athens crowd can intimidate. Witness the strength that Olympiakos, with their sturdy home record in Europe, gain from theirs. Panathinaikos used to have some of the same aura in continental competitions, although it failed them last season, when Manchester United won there and Rangers took a point.
Panathinaikos have beaten Rosenberg in this season’s Champions League, but last week they changed head coach, relieving Israeli Itzhak Shum of the job despite a 100% record in the league so far, replacing him with the Czech Zdenek Scasny.
For those Arsenal survivors from the 2001-02 Champions League campaign, Wednesday’s assignment will stir vivid memories. Thierry Henry finished the 1-0 first-phase defeat in Athens in a state of high anxiety, arguing with opponents whom he perceived to have been conning the referee, with match officials and even with a policeman.
Egaleo and Middlesbrough have no such form. Both are Uefa Cup debutants, the Greeks a model of sound low-budget organisation and squad stability. Their footballers seldom make enough impression on Rehhagel to be elevated to the national team, but they had enough about them to beat Serie A’s Udinese for a place in the Uefa Cup’s inaugural group phase.
Newcastle, for whom Nicky Butt is suspended, face a club of greater pedigree, Panionios having reached the quarter- finals of the old Cup Winners’ Cup six years ago. They have no European champions among them, although opponents are advised to be wary of the Uruguayan midfielder Martin Parodi’s work at set pieces.
Athens awaits the English and hopes they might stumble across relics from Greek football’s brief imperial era of June and July.
