EuroCup 04

A Look Back at Greece's Historic Championship

The year 2004 was always expected to be a big one for Greek sport. However, nobody expected their national football team to cause such a stir as to overshadow the return of the Olympics to its spiritual home in Athens. I look back at Greece's rise to winners of Euro 2004, their subsequent fall from grace and what this year holds for the current European champions...

In international football, Greece was barely even a bit-part player before 2004. That journey can perhaps be traced back to 2001, when the German Otto Rehhagel was appointed as coach.

He took over a ragbag bunch, a team of individuals who were 61st in the Fifa world rankings for good reason. His first game in charge was an embarrassing 5-1 defeat by Finland. Domestically, Greek football was beset by financial problems, hooliganism and a national match-fixing scandal involving the country's referees.

But a month after that loss to Finland there were signs of what was to come as Greece were a desperation David Beckham free-kick away from victory over England at Old Trafford. The Greeks failed to make the 2002 World Cup but qualified for Euro 2004 above Spain after six wins in a row.

Euro 2008 Tournament Begins

But when the shortlist of likely winners in Portugal was drawn up, Greece were at the back of the queue. "It was only the third time Greece had made a major tournament so to qualify for the finals was success in itself," said Greek journalist Panos Polyzoidis. "There was a feel-good factor but nobody would dream of them winning it."

Odds of over 100-1 were being offered on a team that were 35th in the world and had never won a game in a major tournament before. That was to change in the opening match of the tournament whey they shocked the hosts Portugal with a 2-1 victory. It was the start of 23 days when the Greeks would stun the footballing world.

They qualified for the quarter-finals at the expense of Spain, then ranked third in the world, knocked out the holders France and the tournament's form side Czech Republic to reach the final. In a repeat of the opening game of the tournament, Greece beat Portugal to be crowned European champions. It was not Raul, Zinedine Zidane, Pavel Nedved or Cristiano Ronaldo lifting the trophy but Greece captain Theodoros Zagorakis.

Greece's Championship Dream

A banner hanging in Athens city centre read: "If this is a dream, then I never want to wake up." Even four years on it still seems somewhat surreal to think of Greece as the European champions. But anyone who was in Athens at that time can vouch for the reality.

Journalist Barney Spender went out to the city in March 2004 to cover the Olympics and got more than he bargained for. He has never left. "Athens is a very noisy place," said Spender, who covers the national team for Reuters and sportingreece.com. "There are cars everywhere and people lean on their horns all the time but during games the city was silent, no cars were on the roads as everyone was watching the games. When the goals went in there was this amazing echo of roars around the city, which was extraordinary. Within 15 seconds of the final whistle you could hear the car doors banging closed and the horns beeping again. Every time they played the parties got bigger and longer and louder. After the final they reckon two million people crammed the city of Athens and drove round in their cars until the early hours of the next day. Some just went straight to work from there."

The celebrations continued when the Greek team returned to a hero's welcome. President Costis Stefanopoulos and the country's political leaders led a ceremony in the old Olympic stadium that was broadcast live on almost every television channel. The streets were lined from the airport to welcome home the team, while fans sang "God is German" to honour their coach. Rehhagel, the first foreign coach and the oldest to win a major tournament, was offered Greek citizenship.