Three out injured for friendly game against Spain
Greece strikers Angelos Charisteas, Stelios Yiannakopoulos and Yiannis Amanatidis will miss tonight’s friendly against Spain because of injury. Coach Otto Rehhagel has not called up any replacements for the match at Toumba stadium in Thessaloniki. The Greek soccer federation will honor Thodoris Zagorakis, who will play a national-record 120th and last game for Greece. Zagorakis was captain when Greece won the 2004 European Championship in Portugal. Greece plays a Euro 2008 qualifier in Norway on September 12. It leads Group C with 18 points from seven games, five in front of Norway, Boznia-Herzegovina and Turkey. Turkey has played one match less. Spain has qualifiers against Iceland and Latvia next month, but Spain coach Luis Aragones is unhappy with the timing of the friendly as it is just three days before the Spanish season kicks off. «It is very early if you take the physical condition of the players into account,» said Aragones, who named defenders Mariano Pernia, Pablo Ibanez and Juanito Gutierrez to replace the injured Carles Puyol, Javi Navarro, Antonio Puerta and Joan Capdevila. (AP)
