First of all, congratulations to Greece. Irrespective of their playing style, it's good to see one of the minnows win a big tournament - it's good for the development of the game worldwide. That's one for the Gipper. Or Gipperopoulos, anyway.
Secondly, on the playing style, they certainly don't play like Holland, or the Czech Republic, or Portugal, or Brazil, or Argentina, or any of the gun glamour sides of the world, but what they do, they do well. They've got a simple strategy - execute the fundamentals of their defence well, and wait for opportunities at the other end. Not to everyone's taste - not to my taste. BUT I think it's a bit slack to not give them any credit for executing their gameplan well and playing to their strengths. At the end of the day they have the trophy, and winners are grinners while losers can please themselves. Everyone played the same number of games, everyone had the same number of players on the pitch. Portugal had chances to win and didn't. Besides, Italy have been playing that way, with their
catannacio tactics since forever.
Also, they did beat some good sides on their way to the final, including Portugal twice. If anything this shows how overrated Portugal is - no point looking pretty if you're not going to do anything with it. Spain are the same - what a disgrace to football.
Johnny, I know you don't like Greece's style, mate, which is cool
but you sound like one of these blokes at the moment:
[ 07-05-2004, 06:59 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]