Greece National Football Team

The Greece national football team (Greek: Εθνική Ελλάδος, Ethniki Ellados) represents Greece in association football and is controlled by the Hellenic Football Federation, the governing body for football in Greece. Greece's home ground is Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus and their head coach is Fernando Santos. Greece spent most of their history in relative obscurity, having participated only twice in the final tournaments of the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championship, in 1994 and 1980 respectively, until UEFA Euro 2004, when they became European champions in only their second participation in the tournament. The Greeks, dismissed as rank outsiders before the tournament with bookmakers giving odds of between 80–1 to 150–1 for them to win, defeated some of the favourites in the competition including defending champions France and hosts Portugal, who Greece beat in both the opening game of the tournament and again in the final.

Since that victory Greece have occupied a place in the top 30 of the FIFA World Rankings for all but 2 months, and reached a high of 8th from April to June 2008, as well as from September to October 2011.

Read more about Greece National Football Team:  Stadium, Colours, Nicknames, Honours

Famous quotes containing the words football team, greece, national, football and/or team:

    “You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
    —Frank Zappa (1940–1993)

    “It was modesty that invented the word “philosopher” in Greece and left the magnificent overweening presumption in calling oneself wise to the actors of the spirit—the modesty of such monsters of pride and sovereignty as Pythagoras, as Plato.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “Maybe it’s understandable what a history of failures America’s foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of people who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America’s miniature schnauzer—a noisy but small and useless part of the national household.”
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)

    “... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
    —Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)

    “Relying on any one disciplinary approach—time-out, negotiation, tough love, the star system—puts the parenting team at risk. Why? Because children adapt to any method very quickly; today’s effective technique becomes tomorrow’s worn dance.”
    —Ron Taffel (20th century)