Monday, July 05, 2004
Upstart Greece wins Euro 2004
By ROBERT MILLWARD
AP Soccer Writer
LISBON, Portugal (AP): The tournament of upsets produced the biggest one of all on Sunday when Greece, a 100-1 shot that had never won a game in a major soccer tournament before arriving in Portugal, collected the European Championship trophy.
Flops at the 1980 Euros and '94 World Cup, the Greeks beat host Portugal 1-0 in the final in Lisbon's Stadium of Light.
"What happened here is that the Greek team wrote soccer history,'' Greece's Germany coach Otto Rehhagel said.
It was their second victory over the host after a 2-1 victory in the opening game. The Greeks also ousted defending champion France in the quarterfinals, and the heavily favored Czech Republic in the semis.
Angelos Charisteas scored his third goal of Euro 2004 on a 57th-minute header off a corner. Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who guided his native Brazil to its fifth World Cup triumph two years ago, failed in his attempt to become the first to win both the world and European titles with different teams.
Rehhagel succeeded in becoming the first foreign coach to win the European title.
The Portuguese organized the three-week, 31-match championship without a glitch and kept it free of major fan problems. There were three nights of disturbances on the southern Algarve coast where English followers clashed with police. UEFA -- the European governing body -- said the incidents took place away from game venues and were unrelated to the championship.
Because of the additional threat of terrorism, security was tight but unobtrusive. When up to 50,000 English fans gathered to sing and drink in the big squares of Lisbon, police were visible but made few arrests.
Though attendance at some of the matches in the knockout stage was lower than expected, viewing audiences around the world reached record levels. UEFA said some games were seen by 50 million viewers in China, more than double the largest audience in a European nation.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter was an interested spectator. The World Cup two years ago produced surprise semifinalists in South Korea and Turkey. The United States and Senegal reached the quarters.
Euro 2004 was also shocking with powers Spain, Italy and Germany ousted in group play. France and England went out in the quarterfinals.
"There is no gap anymore,'' Blatter said. "It was so interesting because of the 16 teams, everybody can beat everybody. The teams have leveled.''
The shocks started on the opening day.
Greece raced into a 2-0 lead against Portugal, which replied in the final minute to make it 2-1 through a goal from 19-year-old Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo.
Rehhagel's team, which had never won a match at a major championship, followed that with a 1-1 draw with Spain, but came up with a bigger shock by ousting defending champion France 1-0 in the quarters.
The French were a big letdown.
Jacques Santini's team needed two injury-time goals by Zinedine Zidane -- a free kick and a penalty -- to beat England 2-1 and were then held 2-2 by modest Croatia. In the quarterfinal against the Greeks, France was unable to break down the defense and surrendered the European title almost as meekly as it did the World Cup crown two years ago.
Three-time winner Germany and Group C favorite Italy were knocked out in the opening round. The Germans were held 0-0 by 200-1 outsider Latvia and tied 1-1 with neighbor and bitter rival the Netherlands.
Then came the humiliation of a 2-1 loss to a Czech lineup that included nine backup players, and the Germans were out.
The Italians only managed a 0-0 draw with Denmark and tied Sweden 1-1. In the final group match, Italy needed to beat Bulgaria and hope the Scandinavians didn't tie 2-2. That result would put them both through. And that's what they got on a night that Italy defeated Bulgaria 2-1.
When Antonio Cassano scored an injury-time winner for the Italians, he thought he had put his team through. Then he looked at the sad faces on the Italian bench. At almost the same moment, Sweden scored late to draw with Denmark 2-2.
Italy was out without losing a game.
Spain was a first-round loser after failing to beat Greece in Group A and being beaten 1-0 by neighbor Portugal for the first time in 23 years.
The dismal performances of the powerhouses meant the departure of coaches Rudi Voeller, Giovanni Trapattoni and Inaki Saez. Bulgaria's Plamen Markov, whose team lost all its games and scored just one goal, was another casualty. French coach Santini had already decided to join English club Tottenham when the tournament ended.
England unearthed one of the stars of the championship in 18-year-old striker Wayne Rooney, who scored twice against both Switzerland and Croatia. But the Everton striker limped off in the first half of the quarterfinal against Portugal, which went to a penalty shootout. David Beckham, who had an abysmal tournament, fired the first penalty high and wide and Portugal went on to win the shootout 6-5 with goalkeeper Ricardo Pereira saving a spot kick and then firing the winner.
In another quarterfinal, the Netherlands ended years of penalty shootout misery by finally winning one after four losses in a row. The Dutch had never won a shootout, but beat the Swedes, who had never lost one, 5-4 after a tame 0-0 tie in the Algarve.
The Czechs eased into the semifinal with a 3-0 victory over Denmark with Milan Baros taking his scoring tally to five -- high for the tournament.
The Czechs were involved in the best match of the championship, a 3-2 victory over the Dutch in Aveiro after they trailed 2-0.
The match had everything. Both teams fielded attacking lineups, goalkeepers Peter Cech and Edwin van der Sar made top-quality saves, Edgar Davids and Clarence Seedorf hit the Czech posts and Pavel Nedved struck the Dutch crossbar.
While the championship had plenty of dramatic moments, it was punctuated by some low points.
Italy's Francesco Totti was banned for three games after spitting into the face of Denmark's Christian Poulsen. Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy will miss two World Cup qualifying matches for insulting comments he made to Swedish referee Anders Frisk after the 2-1 semifinal loss to Portugal.
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