Miracle , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Vasilis Sambrakos

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206 pages

English

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The Miracle is the inside story of how Greece shocked the footballing world by winning the 2004 European Championship. This incredible underdog tale shows how these 150-1 outsiders went from a team given no chance to being crowned kings of Europe, defeating the host nation in the final. Vasilis Sambrakos retraces Greece's journey by meeting most of Otto Rehagel's squad 15 years after their momentous triumph. The book is both an enthralling football story of victory against the odds and an in-depth look at how a winning team is constructed from the bottom up. It examines the values and methods needed to create a sporting unit along with the roles of the team's key players. The Miracle brings you the untold story of one of the greatest sporting achievements in history.

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Greece

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	07 juin 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785319495
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Vasilis Sambrakos, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317835
eBook ISBN 9781785319495
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Contents
Foreword by Michael Calvin
1. Curtain Up
2. The 24th Man
3. Integrity and Credibility
4. Confidence and Trust
5. Crisis and Conviction
6. Band of Brothers
7. Lieutenant Topalidis
8. Turning the National Team into a Club
9. Qualification
10. King Otto
11. The Protector
12. The Myth of Anti-football
13. The Human Touch
14. All for One
15. Lift-off
16. Coping with Pressure
17. A New Pressure
18. Breakthrough
19. A Golden Silver Goal
20. For All Eternity
21. Look Back In Wonder
22. Team
23. Credit Where It Is Due
24. The King I
How to Manage a Team of B Players
Tactical Notes and Comments
Tactical Summary
Photos
Foreword
By Michael Calvin
OLD TRAFFORD had emptied. An hour earlier it had been raucous, incredulous, ablaze with colour and alive with noise. Now, only the gentle hum of the groundstaff s choreographed lawnmowers competed with the urgent tapping of computer keyboards in the tight, narrow press box. That is the sound of football writers in their element, chasing a succession of deadlines.
Last-minute goals instil terror and exhilaration in our business. The adrenaline rush of reacting to the moment is addictive. David Beckham s free kick against Greece had secured qualification for the 2002 World Cup finals and demanded an instant rewrite on the whistle for first editions; we crashed through the gears because the storyline had shifted, from abject failure to national celebration.
I was just about to send what I prayed was my definitive column when my attention was drawn to an instantly recognisable figure, shuffling between the seats. As ever, he was shadowed by security guards. It was Beckham, going to join his family in the hospitality boxes behind us, at the back of the main stand. Neither he, nor we, were prepared for what happened next.
Hardened hacks rose as one, pausing frantic thoughts and finely judged phrases, and began to applaud. Beckham slowed, smiled shyly, and was transformed from burgeoning brand to bashful boy. He could barely bring himself to mouth the words thank you . He knew the significance of the spontaneous act of respect. In later years, when his evolution from Galactico to global citizen was complete, he would cite the moment as one of the most memorable of a celebrated career.
Little did we know, as we settled back down to file our copy that we would be telling only half of the story. This book seeks to redress the balance by giving an insight into one of international football s most unlikely successes. We didn t realise it at the time, but, in little more than two years, that Greek team would develop into European champions.
They were 150-1 outsiders, going into the 2004 finals in Portugal. Greece had not qualified for the European Championship since 1980, and their previous experience of a major tournament, losing all three group games without scoring a goal in the 1994 World Cup in the US, was seared into the national consciousness.
Vasilis Sambrakos, a renowned Athens-based journalist who combines television analysis of the international game with his work as executive editor of a leading website, covered the tournament for Greek readers and viewers. Constantine Gonticas watched it from the UK as an increasingly awestruck fan before he, too, headed for Lisbon, and the manifestation of the miracle, a 1-0 win over the hosts, Portugal, in the final at Est dio da Luz.
Football, for all its faults and foibles, can form powerful bonds of friendship. This book is the product of just such a shared passion. Vasilis and Constantine, introduced by a mutual friend, were determined to give depth and clarity to the achievement of an under-appreciated Greek team by challenging the assumption it represented no more than a masterclass in defensive rigour.
Vasilis, a senior writer for the newspaper To Vima at the time, had daily contact with a core group of up to a dozen players during the tournament. He revisted them to reinforce his research for this book, which began to take shape in his head as early as 2002, when he sensed the significance of the change in collective mentality instilled by Otto Rehhagel. Under him, Greece climbed from 66th in the world rankings to eighth.
Vasilis was from the same generation as the players on whom he reported. I can identify with the strange sense of emotional osmosis that can occur in such circumstances. Despite the broader picture of collective suspicion and antagonism towards the media in the modern game, the individual relationship between writer and footballer often straddles the line between professional and personal.
Players become friends, rather than subject matter. Over time, trust and respect becomes mutual. No wonder Vasilis admits to crying with happiness for the first time at a football match when the final whistle blew in Lisbon. He did not stop until Theo Zagorakis lifted the trophy, with both hands, above his head in a blizzard of blue and white confetti.
I got to know Constantine a decade ago, during a season embedded at Millwall, the club of which he has been a director for 15 years, for my book Family: Life, Death and Football . The game, for him, is an extension of a love story that began in his grandmother s house when he was aged seven, and entranced by week-old, black and white transmissions of English Football League matches on Greek TV.
A globally focused financier, he has retained that childhood wonder at football s sense of freedom and opportunity. We occasionally have lunch when he finds himself in London, and I have become accustomed to his entreaties to come to my own conclusion, by watching extended videos of that 2004 team. He sees beauty where others see functionality.
I m taken by the parallel he draws between Millwall, his adopted club, and the Greek team that became a manifestation of national pride. Each has an underdog mentality and an underpinning sense of defiance, reflected by a fiercely committed fanbase. If you do not like them, they do care, deep down.
Just as the Millwall team I chronicled was shaped by the solidity and authenticity of the Guvnors, my term for the core group of senior players who set personal and professional standards in the dressing room, the Greek team was pivoted by strong characters and infectious personalities, like Giorgos Karagounis, Theodoros Zagorakis, Antonis Nikopolidis and Traianos Dellas.
The book features insights from manager Otto Rehhagel, his assistant Giannis Topalidis, and experts, ranging from psychologists to neurologists and data analysts. It contains tactical summaries that give another dimension to one of football s greatest upsets. Enjoy: you have nothing to change but your mind.
Chapter One
Curtain Up
DUTCH REFEREE Dick Jol blew the final whistle. The Greek journalists who were at Old Trafford on the afternoon of 6 October 2001 to watch Greece s match against England hugged each other with the passion of fans whose team had just achieved a historic victory.
We shared that joy with David Beckham, who was on a victory lap with his team-mates. They were celebrating with 65,000 singing English fans. The other thousand spectators, cheering just as loudly, were Greek students. The 2-2 draw was historic, not only for sending England to the 2002 World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea, but also because it was the most positive result achieved by a Greek national team against the Three Lions in a competitive match. The previous high water mark had been a 0-0 draw in a friendly at Wembley in 1983.
Beckham s 93rd-minute goal deprived Greece of a seminal victory. It did not, however, overshadow the Greek team s outstanding performance. In this, his second game in charge, Otto Rehhagel went from dark - the 5-1 defeat against Finland on his managerial debut in Helsinki a month earlier - to light . The German coach had just provided an early indication of what he would be trying to achieve with the team he had taken over. He had used Old Trafford as a screen on which to show a trailer of the show he was planning to stage at Euro 2004.
That tournament would not only turn into the most extraordinary event in Greek football, but would also constitute one of the biggest surprises in the history of the international game. That Saturday afternoon at Old Trafford was the first hint of a dream, the unveiling of the future European champions. Rio Ferdinand, at the heart of the England defence in that 2-2 draw, was suitably impressed.
Of course I remember the match, he said, with the hindsight of many years experience. Greece were a difficult team to play against. Tough, disciplined, with good players. Very stable. I certainly didn t expect them to win the Euros, but it was a tough team to beat. Its greatest advantage? Tactically, it was very stable and solid. A very tough opponent. I followed them and noticed that they were improving, I realised they would pres