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"Greece is a little country" is no excuse.


Grigoris

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After the Brazil game I saw a lot of posts stating that we are just a little country and we were up against the best in the world - as if this is supposed to make it OK that we got beat 3-0. Now we lost to Japan and I see more of the same. Well, I did some basic research regarding little countries like Greece and would like to share that with you. Following are the population sizes of a number of European countries in the same range (or smaller) as Greece. A good number of these countries have a decent football tradition. Arguably, we even have a few world powers in Holland, Portugal, and Czech Republic. Also, as we all know, Denmark has more than a decent side, yet with only half our population. It is time we stop using our size as an excuse, since it is not really a valid one.

Holland - 16M

Greece - 10M

Portugal - 10M

Czech Republic - 10M

Belgium - 10M

Hungary - 10M

Serbia - 10M

Sweden - 9M

Austria - 8M

Bulgaria - 7M

Switzerland - 7M

Denmark - 5M

Scotland - 5M

Croatia - 4M

Ireland - 4M

Norway - 4M

Slovenia - 2M

Also, in case anyone is interested, following are the European countries with a population greater than 10M:

Russia - 143M

Germany - 82M

Turkey - 69M

France - 60M

Italy - 58M

England - 47M

Ukraine - 47M

Spain - 40M

Poland - 38M

Holland - 16M

Kazakstan - 15M

As far as I can tell, there are only 11 countries in Europe with a population larger than that of Greece, and another 5 with a population the same size. I don't believe our problems are due to the size of our country but rather our infrastructure and mentality. We made great strides to change that in 2003 and 2004. 2005 has been a different story though.

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Relax people. We should stay strong in the bad days as well as in the good ones. We are obviusly going through some bad games but nothing will be lost if we make it to the world cup. You know something we are the Eurocup Chapions and everybody is jealus of as and they try their best to win us. Look at Brazil today they aren't the playing same against Mexico as they did against us. We should keep our faith to our coach and he will find an answare in the near future. Don't forget the big Greek teams are always buying many foreign players and is hard for Otto to replace some of the current players in the National team that look as if they have completed their cycle. :gr:

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All I am saying is that there are several small European countries that have a very good pedigree, and their small size is not an issue - Holland, Portugal and Czech Republic, for example. Of course, I do not like to see our team lose. However, what I like even less is to see ERT and other publications take the attitude of "poor us, we are such a little country."

Ert.gr made the following statements in its recap of th past two games -- "In a country numbering approximately 12 million inhabitants, it is hard to find players talented enough to replace those who were crowned European Champions." (Japan) and "A respectable 3-0" as the title of the recap vs. Brazil. We are European champions and nothing will ever change what we accomplished last year. As European champions, though, we should not be making excuses about injuries or the small size of our country. The Czech Republic (with the same population as Greece) fielded its second team against Germany last year and still beat them. We have plenty of talent. We need to use it, and we need to continue to develop it.

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I didn't want to believe that our triumph in the Euro 2004 tournament was a coincidence and due to our extreme luck. This is proven day by day since then though.

Whoever is watching MEX-BRA game right now knows first hand what great soccer is all about. Compare this game with the GRE-JAP one and you'll see a bunch of shadows (the Greeks) trying to defend their name as European Champions!

What a joke!

They should make a Southern Balcan Countries Cup and we should play against Malta, Cyprus and Sicily (please allow Sicily to play!). That way we may win the cup!

Shame on them! SHAME ON THE CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE!

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Grigoris you are a thinking man, thanks for the stats!

Same old worn out excuses emanating from Greece (imaste mikroi, oi megaloi den mas afinoun, oloi mas zilevoun, Brazilia oi magoi ths mpalas....) and as such we'll never get ahead. Unless we drop our silly magkia, change our own subservient mentality and prepare for hard work it'll be more of the same in the future. And if this change it is to happen it will take generations.

What I say is sad but true!

gcp

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After the Brazil game I saw a lot of posts stating that we are just a little country and we were up against the best in the world - as if this is supposed to make it OK that we got beat 3-0. Now we lost to Japan and I see more of the same. Well, I did some basic research regarding little countries like Greece and would like to share that with you. Following are the population sizes of a number of European countries in the same range (or smaller) as Greece. A good number of these countries have a decent football tradition. Arguably, we even have a few world powers in Holland, Portugal, and Czech Republic. Also, as we all know, Denmark has more than a decent side, yet with only half our population. It is time we stop using our size as an excuse, since it is not really a valid one.

Holland - 16M

Greece - 10M

Portugal - 10M

Czech Republic - 10M

Belgium - 10M

Hungary - 10M

Serbia - 10M

Sweden - 9M

Austria - 8M

Bulgaria - 7M

Switzerland - 7M

Denmark - 5M

Scotland - 5M

Croatia - 4M

Ireland - 4M

Norway - 4M

Slovenia - 2M

Also, in case anyone is interested, following are the European countries with a population greater than 10M:

Russia - 143M

Germany - 82M

Turkey - 69M

France - 60M

Italy - 58M

England - 47M

Ukraine - 47M

Spain - 40M

Poland - 38M

Holland - 16M

Kazakstan - 15M

As far as I can tell, there are only 11 countries in Europe with a population larger than that of Greece, and another 5 with a population the same size. I don't believe our problems are due to the size of our country but rather our infrastructure and mentality. We made great strides to change that in 2003 and 2004. 2005 has been a different story though.

The Size of country dosnt matter if a team plays strong or not

on the footabll ground there are 22 players !

Look at the Faroer Islands they also can play football ok they loose every time but on this Island tehre live more sheep than human 60.000 sheep and 40.000 people.... if they would have a good coach and a lillte bit more money maybe they would win the European Championship :D :D :D

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Greece is not a small country .....

they have many Islands

if you imagine that one day Cyprus will belong to Greece (Enosis....) than you will see that Greece have much territory..

and 11 million polpulation is enough to have many good football players!!

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gcp,

exoume dropiasti mprosta ston kosmo. Dinmoume to dikeoma se oli thn saboura na mas baloun kato sto xamilo epipedw.

:D :D :D

You have every reason to be smug Turkcell. We are humiliated on the world stage.

We think that some rubbish clown festival Eurovison song contest makes us feel important in Europe when our pride and glory in football is back to getting humiliated.

It's a crying shame.

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Akriti you are absolutely correct! Truth be told with this NT I thought we had moved beyond our mizeria and substandard ways/thinking but sadly I was wrong.

Nata mas! Oi magoi ths mpalas xasan apo to Mexico 0-1!! Ksexasan fenete na poun tous Mexikanoys oti den mporoun na nikisoyn to MAGOYS ths mpalas...ta xalia mas.

And what is the deal with ERA spor lately? Have the anouncers lost all ability to desribe the game phasi pros phasi rather than chit-chat among themselves about their coffee drinking and such (Greece vs Brasil game)?

Pathetic all around I'd say!

gcp

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Akriti you are absolutely correct! Truth be told with this NT I thought we had moved beyond our mizeria and substandard ways/thinking but sadly I was wrong.

Nata mas! Oi magoi ths mpalas xasan apo to Mexico 0-1!! Ksexasan fenete na poun tous Mexikanoys oti den mporoun na nikisoyn to MAGOYS ths mpalas...ta xalia mas.

And what is the deal with ERA spor lately? Have the anouncers lost all ability to desribe the game phasi pros phasi rather than chit-chat among themselves about their coffee drinking and such (Greece vs Brasil game)?

Pathetic all around I'd say!

gcp

Xese mesa. Ta "paidia" mas exoun kseftilisi.

What's up with EPT and their dishonourable excuses that we are small nation blah blah blah. We are sounding like a pathetic and miserable load of defeatists. No such thing as an "honourable" 3 - 0 defeat.

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Hey palikaria!

Listen now is not the time to panic but rather the time to truly support the National Team. It's very easy to jump on the bandwagon when they win, wave the flags, and the sing the national anthem. A true supporter is there when they lose as well.

What did you think that because we won the Euro we're unbeatable?

We went from being happy to get a tie a few years ago, to we should win every game.

Of course we have talent and the truth is the size of the country does not matter because all you have to do is field 11 good players. In a country of 11 million we can definitely find 11.

Our game plan is very simple strong defence, counterattack and capitalize on your chances. THe problem now is that injuries finally caught up to us and Charisteas along with Vryzas can't score even if the nets were as big as a barn.

Without Dellas, Kapsis and Seitaridis we have nothing back there. Basinas cannot play sweeper for his life. Remember the goal Ukraine scored he completely misread the play and misplayed the ball.

Do we need changes? Of course. Look at France. They haven't given their young players the chance in recent years and now they're paying the price. You need to groom your young talent in order for them to be ready to take over for the older ones. This confederation cup was the best time to give a break to the players that have carried us for the last year and a half, and allow the younger players to gain valuable experience. This way even we had a poor performance we wouldn't really care as long as the younger players got to play.

The bottom line is that our expectations have reached a level that our NT for the time being cannot fulfill.

Will they bounce back? Of course they will. Once you've tasted success you want to be able to have it all the time.

It's bad enough other people are trying to bring us down because they're jealous let's stay united and not help their cause. Stand together thru thick and thin and we will prevail again.

As well, it would be nice if the officiating could help us out a little bit. Just recently, Giannakopoulos against Ukraine definitely no offside there. Today, Charisteas was definitely tripped in the box and considering the way the referees have been handing out penalties in this tournament we merited that one.

I guess we really pissed off a lot of those so called soccer purists when we won the Euro. Some of those purists happen to be referees and linesmen as well.

Don't be fooled soccer on the International level is an elitist members only club and right now Greece is an unwanted member.

When Italy was winning their Championships those purists praised their defensive attitude and strategy to play for penalty kicks. We did exactly like them and we were called boring and unorthodox. What an irony.

Truth is we need to work twice as hard now because no one will give us the benefit of the doubt anymore.

No matter what happens I know that deep down inside the Greek spirits burns in all Greeks no matter where they are located and that they will never take away from us. That is what makes everyone jealous!!!!

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The population of Greece has nuttin to do with whether we can be a strong soccer nation

off course statistically speaking u would think a bigger nation would have a better chance to field more soccer players but we are talking about a soccer team that needs 22 players

Greece's problem at the moment is injuries but it goes beyond that

our midfield is slow and lack creativity and our major problem is lack of strikers

King Otto will need to look deep into Greece to find better players cause lets be honest the players we had in Euro 2004 won't cut it if we are to finish 2nd place

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i think poster northwesterner replayed the fash and said it was seitaridi who messed up.

seitaridis, not basians, made the error on gusin's goal.

yes that was me, i watched the replay 2-3 times and couldn't believe Giourkas was caught in the middle of nowhere. i wouldn't put all the blame on him though, i mean Otto decides to sub Kapsis for Vyntra who plays on the right and move Giourkas into the middle where thats not his usual position.

to all you Basinas bashers ..... :tdown:

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Good job Grigori.

But I disagree a bit..

Size is not an excuse for what? For losing against Brazil? Why? Is it strange? For losing against Japan who had beaten half of the world teams in the previous world cup?

Is it the first time we lose like this? Are the others forbiden to win?

Perhaps it is a bit of a shame to lose 3 times in a row as a champion, but we know our team is not a major force. Lets try to develop the sport first and then apologise for losing games against footbal and economic superpowers like Brazil and Japan. See, they are not totally unconnected.

In my opinion only losing to Albania is a disgrace but it was also bad luck.

All the aforementioned countries except the Chechs and are more developed and organized than us.

If you think we are Danemark thats another story..

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As a french and greek Fans I strongly disagree with the size or infrastructure....

You forgot that in Greece you have ONLY 14 (Nikopolidis, Seitaridis, Fyssas, Dellas, Kapsis, Bassinas, Zagorakis, Katsouranis, Tsartas, Giannakopoulos, Charisteas, Vrysas, Karagounis, Kyrgiakos) or 15 (if we count Zikos) that have the international level, so if you have 4 (Dellas, Kapsis, Fyssas + Vrysas who was injured) missing against Brazil and 5 (Dellas, Kapsis, Seitaridis, Zagorakis +Vrysas) of them against Japan do not expect good results!!!!!

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The question is - why do we have only 14 or 15 true international players? We are the same size (in terms of population) as the Czechs, yet they can field two first teams. We are twice the size of Denmark, yet their history is much deeper than ours.

Too often our own press and fans take the atitude of - what can we do? We're small. However, the real reason is that we have not developed the proper infrastructure to allow the right percentage of our 10+ million citizens to develop into international calibre football players. Of course, some of this comes down to economics as well. If the money, though, went to where it was supposed to go, then this would not be as big of a factor as it is.

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I dont know what the problem is, lets not beat around the bush though, it could be possible corruption, almost all the time. When Otto came he took all corruption out of the national team. Remember when ppl asked Otto not to play niko cos he had disreputes with PAO. Well he said i will play him ,cos hes our best goalie. For years and years Greece never progressed cos of corruption, and the fact that greeks are not good managers, we needed a foreing one. As long as we can keep corruption out of national teams, we will be one of the top 10 in europe. And jst that will make me proud.

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guys, i understand about the passion and with the players we do have we could maybe accomplish more, but the size thing is true, they r facts, the reason why countries' are consistently good like brazil, england, italy, etc. and so on is because of their size, that is what allows u to be a franchise, now with the small countries every once in a while they will have their golden era like hungary during puskas days, us with the euro, bulgaria in the 94 WC, and so on, the only exception to this i see is holland which is pretty consistent throughotu t he years

but there is obviously no excuse for our last 4 results, with brazil we were just pathetic after the 35 mark, looked silly, with japan we sucked especially in transition defence which is why i think he took tavlaridis out because he could not get his ass back, and the most obvious problem, WE CANT SCORE

4 games in a row we got shutout, now we can t just blame he forwards even tho vryza sucks and haristea has been subpar of late, when have u seen the midfielders send one ball up to the forwards, a thru ball or somethin to give them chances to score, im sorry but our midfield gets dominated every game lately

KYRGIAKOS saved our ass too many times and he is easily the best defender we have if u ask me, also i htink papadopoulos has done kinda good the past two games

lets go otto, ftiaxe ta latomata mas

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i found these very interesting numbers from Euro 2004 participating countries, all numbers are approximate:

Greece: Population 10,700,000 Registered players 225,000 (approx)

Portugal: Population 10.1 million Registered players 98,500 :o

Russia: Population 148 million Registered players Approx. 1.5 million

Spain: Population 40.03 million Registered players 671,581

Croatia: Population 4,400,000 Registered players 75,000

England: Population 49.138 million Registered players 1,500,000

France: Population 60.2 million Registered players 2,141,239

Switzerland: Population 7.2 million Registered players 230,000

Bulgaria: Population 7.98 million Registered players Approx. 18,000

Denmark: Population 5.3 million Registered players 308,318

Italy: Population 57.4 million Registered players 528,200

Sweden: Population 8.9 million Registered players 198,520

Czech Rep: Population 1O.2 million Registered players 565,650 approx.

Germany: Population 82.2 million Registered players 6.274 million :o

Latvia: Population 2.4 million Registered players 8,000

Holland: Population 16.1 million Registered players Approx. 1.05 million

you make good points above. just notice how we compare to Portugal with similar population and they have even less then half the number of registered players than we do yet they have more individualy skilled players than we do. this just reinforces the point about football academies.

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As a french and greek Fans I strongly disagree with the size or infrastructure....

You forgot that in Greece you have ONLY 14 (Nikopolidis, Seitaridis, Fyssas, Dellas, Kapsis, Bassinas, Zagorakis, Katsouranis, Tsartas, Giannakopoulos, Charisteas, Vrysas, Karagounis, Kyrgiakos) or 15 (if we count Zikos) that have the international level, so if you have 4 (Dellas, Kapsis, Fyssas + Vrysas who was injured) missing against Brazil and 5 (Dellas, Kapsis, Seitaridis, Zagorakis +Vrysas) of them against Japan do not expect good results!!!!!

You hit the nail on the head :tup:
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we need academies and coaches to develope our own football style.

no football infrastructure = players with poor off the ball and positioning skills. this sums up greek footballers whether we win the euro or lose to albania.

Obviously but I think first you need a change in mentlity and attitude for that to happen.

Look at the news today, FIFA chief met with EPO over the government inteferring with sport and he was quoted as saying:

"It is disappointing because the federation behind the reigning European champions should be a role model organisation, but this is not the case."

It seems they haven't learned a thing from last summer and what's even more disappointing is this is not the first time EPO have been warned about this issue.

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