by John Greece

Created on: July 05, 2010   Last Updated: July 07, 2010

The national team of Greece got the ticket for the World Cup finals in South Africa in the last minute when defeated Ukraine at Donetsk with 1-0 (scores Salpingidis). It was a crucial match because it judged which team would go to the finals and Greece had already lost points since the first match in Athens, which was a draw 0-0.

After this match, the international football players of Greece gave a few matches on a friendly level in order to keep in shape. None of them was winning for the Greeks and nor the show was appreciated from the fans who watched the games. The results and the conclusions after those matches were not so good for them and the first official game in South Africa versus Korea was coming.

12/06/2010 Korea rep. vs Greece 2-0

When we are talking about Greece you must be ready for the best and for the worst. Greeks can give the best show ever in order to enjoy the public like the one in Portugal when they won the Euro Cup. However, the performance of the players toward Korea was poor, bad and negative for sure (the usual exception was Dimitris Salpingidis). In a game where the opponent was about the same capacity the Greeks were unable to seize the few opportunities that had during the race. They made several mistakes and received two easy goals by a team in very good physical condition. Undoubtedly, the Korean won was fair.

17/06/2010 Greece vs Nigeria 2-1

After the consecutive unsuccessful results and the relentlessly harsh criticism, the Greeks were forced to overcome the obstacle of Nigeria, which was the next opponent. After everything that had happened after the match against Korea there was skepticism but everyone was ready for the big reversal. Unfortunately, the emergence of Greece in the first 20 minutes did not satisfied anyone. It was similar to that toward Korea and everybody thought that it was time for the way back to the country. Indeed, the score was already 1-0 after the inertia of the Greek defense to kick the ball away to a phase which seemed easy.

Greece continues to be out of change and threatened to accept another goal. But the energy without any sense at all of Keita to hit Torosidis at a skirmish among themselves about who won the side changed the whole flow of the game. The Nigerian footballer saw the red card referee Ruiz and left his team with ten players. From there onwards, the Greeks changed psychology, their morale went up, created the necessary phases to achieve the desired goal before the end of the first half

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