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Greece national football team

Greece national football team
National Football Team
NameGreece
NicknameEthniki (National)
Galanolefki (Blue-white)
AssociationHellenic Football Federation
ConfederationUEFA (Europe)
Head coachFernando Santos
Asst coachLeonidas Vokolos
CaptainGiorgos Karagounis
Most caps  Theodoros Zagorakis (120)
Top scorerNikos Anastopoulos (29)
Home stadiumKaraiskakis Stadium (now)
Olympic Stadium
other stadiums outside the capital
AEL FC Arena (Larissa)
Pankritio Stadium (Crete)
FIFA codeGRE
FIFA ranking11
Highest FIFA ranking8 (April 2008 � June 2008)
Lowest FIFA ranking66 (September 1998)
Elo ranking28
Highest Elo ranking7 (August 2004)
Lowest Elo ranking78 (May 1963 and November 1963)
World Cup Statistics
First internationalGreece 1 � 4 Italy
(Athens, Greece; 7 April 1929)
Biggest winGreece 8 � 0 Syria
(Athens, Greece; 25 November 1949)
Biggest defeatHungary 11 � 1 Greece
(Budapest, Hungary; 25 March 1938)
Appearances2
First World Cup1994
Best resultRound 1, 1994 and 2010
Regional cup statistics
European Championship
Appearances3
First apps.1980
Best resultWinners, 2004
Confederations Cup Statistics
Appearances1
First apps.2005
Best resultRound 1, 2005

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The Greek national football team ( , ) 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 Greece 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. Furthermore, the team attracts large numbers of fans not only at home matches, a rare phenomenon in the previous years, but even when they play abroad. For instance, a friendly clash between Australia and Greece in 2006 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in Melbourne, Australia, set a stadium attendance record for association football attracting 95,103 fans, some of whom originated from the large Greek Australian community.


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