Injury worry for Charisteas
Tickets for Greece’s crucial soccer match against Turkey on March 24 for the European Championship’s qualifying stage will be going on sale today in Athens (Korai Square) and Piraeus (Karaiskaki Stadium), but fans attending may well miss Euro 2004 winner Angelos Charisteas, who was injured last weekend. This key loss for Greece’s frontline will undoubtedly trouble manager Otto Rehhagel, who was happy seeing the Feyenoord striker return to form and score one goal after another in the Dutch league. He has taken his tally to nine so far. On Sunday, in the AZ Alkmaar vs Feyenoord match, the striker whose header beat the Portuguese defense to make Greece the European champions, limped off after 74 minutes having pulled a muscle and, according to the head of the Rotterdam club’s medical team, he will be out for 10 days at least. Charisteas is known to be a fighter and he will ask to play even without proper training, but his recuperation may take more time. Charisteas’s injury and his possible absence have put Bochum striker Fanis Gekas at the top of Rehhagel’s pick list. The former Kallithea and Panathinaikos star scored twice on Saturday, helping Bochum beat Borussia Dortmund 2-0 in the Bundesliga. He is now second in the league’s score chart with 12 goals, one less than Mario Gomez of Stuttgart. Asked whether he is optimistic about the clash with Turkey at the Karaiskaki Stadium, Rehhagel yesterday said in a radio interview that «being the manager, I can only be optimistic. What I do want is for all my players to arrive healthy on March 19 so that we can prepare for the game. Speaking with my assistant Yiannis Topalidis and the players I have realized there is a passion for victory.» «I expect the Karaiskaki Stadium to be full to capacity and the players to give their best for the three points. We must avoid personal errors, such as the one [Real Madrid defender] Roberto Carlos committed in the first seconds of the Bayern vs Real match [in the Champions League]. We have already made a great start in the qualifying stage and we must continue in the same way,» said the Greece manager.
