Finally, Greece's presence at this World Cup is a total embarrassment. It's an absolute mystery how they managed to win Euro 2004. Their stodgy, slow, defensive play is looking worse every tournament as their key players get older and weaker.
That's is completely disingenuous. As a Greek American I find their performance disappointing but there's several factors that play into how and why they play like that. It's not because of 2004. 2004's team was the pinnacle of Greek Football talent. It was a perfect storm situation for them the players, the coach, and form. Will never happen again. But it was a great story and refreshing to see a team that wasn't one of the European super powers to win it for once. But that was 2004.
This Greek team is limited in its midfield options. What they produce in defensive players, the midfield situation is the complete opposite to the point they have to rely on a converted RB as a DM, a 38 year old Karagounis, and a 34 year old Katsouranis (who played as a CB this year for his club team) as key cogs in their midfield. They just don't have the talent there and the talent they do have is not ready or not player because the coach, Fernando Santos, is a moron and refuses to change things up. Fortunately, he's gone after the tournament. Unfortunately,they are here now and have to make due with what they have: decent goalkeeping, a good backline, a horrendous midfield, and no healthy strikers. That being said, Santos totally effed up the opener at the Euro in Poland and was forced to change on the fly. Hopefully that will be the case again.
This team can't afford to fall behind. They are not built to do that. The Columbia game illustrated that. Columbia got a fortuitous bounce and went up 6 mins into the game. The Gekas later on header just broke their spirit. It would have been 1-1. How the hell you miss from 4 yards out is beyond me but they were broken after that. I still give them a fighting chance to get a result against Japan and Ivory Coast.
But as someone else mentioned, you play with what you got. Greece will always be a defend first and score second nation.
