In one of the parts of antic Greece – in Laconia very hard working people lived and always preferred working to talking. They used short phrases for talking. Persia always had fights with Greece and during one of the attacks Persian king decided to offer Laconia to give up and sent them short letter: If I enter your country – I will ravage you!

Laconians answered:

If!
This word was the main for the Greek team before the match against Russia – Greeks would have gone through playoff – if they had won… Greeks often mentioned this word at the pre-match press conference and their Portuguese head coach Fernando Santos stated that he knew how to defeat Russians – mystic word had come true!

Everything was against Greece before the start of the match: I do not say anything about their financial and economic crisis and two parliamentary elections in Greece. After collapsing Soviet Union, Greeks won only 1 from 10 matches over Russia. Besides that, Greeks lost to Russians in European Championship 2004 and 2008. Seven players from this staff played against Greeks in 2004 and 11 – in 2008! And do not forget that Advocaat has not lost 16 matches in a row since February 2011. Russians were scored only four goals in last 13 matches… Kostas Chalkias, Avraam Papadopoulos and Giorgos Fotakis were injured!

…Greeks scored goals in all last 7 matches and if they managed to score against Russians…

Before the match none of the teams held practicing on Warsaw stadium – the teams trained on different Warsaw stadiums. There are twenty big and small stadiums in the capital of Poland. Unlike Georgians, no one build living buildings on them. Russians trained on a small stadium called Drukas stadium which was located in the center of the city. Such event has never been held there and I had to work hard to make good conditions for 100 journalists. Personnel of the stadium did everything for us and decorated mixed zone for journalists with flowers…

Before the match, Advocaat put Zyryanov instead of Glushakov on the left wing.  By the way, he played well. According to statistic, his assists were 84% accurate. He was so active that was called for drug test (traditionally, 2-2 players from each team take drug test. Neither his nor Dzagoev could save Russians. They kicked the ball 25 times (Greeks kicked twice!), took 12 corner kicks but weak play of Andrei Arshavin must be mentioned – he had the worst strategic result – only 65% of his assists was accurate… At the second added minute of the first half, Sergei Ignashevich assisted 35-year-old Giorgos Karagounis who scored goal. Russians left the stadium and the championship with bad mood…
 

UEFA media officer Mamuka Kvaratskhelia, specially for worldsport.ge from Warsaw

Photos by the author