Greece National Football Team - Stadium

Stadium

Historically, Greece have used various stadiums as their home ground, but they have spent most of their history playing their home matches in Athens, while stadiums in other cities around the country, especially Thessaloniki, have occasionally hosted the national team. They played most of their competitive matches at the Karaiskakis Stadium and the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium until the mid-1980s, when the Athens Olympic Stadium opened and hosted the majority of Greece's home matches, before the stadium was closed for renovation in 2002 for the upcoming 2004 Summer Olympics, when Greece moved to the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium for the UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying.

After they were crowned European champions in 2004, the newly reconstructed Karaiskakis Stadium became the new home ground of the Greek national team for the qualifyings of the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the 2008 UEFA Euro, when some riots took place during a match against Turkey in the latter competition; the team was forced to play away from Athens for two fixtures and moved to the Pankritio Stadium in Heraklion, Crete, before moving back to Athens and the Olympic Stadium for the remaining matches. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification, Greece used all these three stadiums for home games, but Karaiskakis Stadium has been used more recently for official matches and it is considered the current home ground of the team unless a different decision is made.