Greece is missing several key players for Romania match
Greece’s national soccer team will be without several key players in its final test against Romania tomorrow, ahead of its opening Euro 2004 qualifying game. Greece will begin that quest against Spain in Athens on September 7. Newcastle United defender Nikos Dabizas said he would not be available for selection for tomorrow’s full-dress rehearsal against Romania, citing commitments with his English Premier League club. Hard-running midfielder Giorgos Karagounis, an instrumental figure behind Panathinaikos’s impressive run in last year’s Champions League, has recovered from a serious knee injury incurred against Barcelona in that competition, but needs to regain his fitness. After months spent on the sidelines, Karagounis returned to full training last week. Olympiakos defender Christos Patsatzoglou will be forced to miss the match because of lighter injury problems. The national team’s coach, Otto Rehhagel – who was hired not long after Greece’s hopes of qualifying for this summer’s World Cup finals had vanished, and whose first major objective is a Euro 2004 berth – expects all three players to be available for the upcoming clash against Spain at the Leoforos Alexandras stadium, Panathinaikos’s home ground. This is where a 1-0 win against the Soviet Union in 1979 earned Greece its first-ever place in a European Championship finals event, back in 1980. «I already have in mind the team’s lineup for the match against Spain, but may make decisions on some positions a day before the game,» Rehhagel told a news conference yesterday. Rehhagel said several players would be tested in tomorrow’s game to shed further light on his game strategy for the encounter against the Spaniards. «We’re going to try a few things so that I can be sure about the players I’m going to select for the match against Spain,» Rehhagel said. «Romania is a tough side and we’re going to have to play well for a good result. Despite the injury problems, we are in a position to play the way I intend,» he added. The German coach expressed satisfaction over the national soccer federation’s decision to begin this season’s domestic competition two weeks before Greece’s first Euro 2004 qualifier. Responding to a reporter’s question on whether the national team’s doors would reopen for star player Grigoris Georgatos if he apologized for a dispute with the German coach that prompted Rehhagel to oust him soon after he had assumed his coaching position, Greece’s coach stated: «As far as I know, Mr Georgatos bid farewell to the national team.» Not long after Rehhagel’s arrival early in 2001, Georgatos refused to play a position allotted to him by Rehhagel in a World Cup qualifier against Finland. Georgatos, who spent recent seasons with Italy’s Inter but has just signed with AEK, had reacted by making himself unavailable for the national team. Around the same time, Rehhagel, who had just taken the reins of a side in bad need of discipline, did not hesitate to toss the controversial player from his squad. Referring to another Greek international playing abroad, the young attacker Angelos Haristeas, who scored a goal for his German club Werder against Hamburg in a Bundesliga clash last weekend, Rehhagel let it be known that he is not easily impressed. «He is a tremendous talent,» Rehhagel said, «but still needs more work.» In Bucharest, veteran defender Gheorghe Popescu has been included as a late call-up for the Romania squad for tomorrow’s friendly against Greece, the team’s coach Anghel Iordanescu said yesterday. Popescu became a free agent in June after his contract with Italian side Lecce expired, prompting Iordanescu to say the player was not prepared enough to play on the national side. But last Saturday he signed a two-month contract with Romanian champions Dinamo Bucharest.
