GREECE PROUD OF PLAYERS

The Greece national team manager Fernando Santos has said that he is extremely proud of his players, despite the 4-2 defeat at the hands of Germany in the quarter-finals of the Euro 2012. Greece came into the competition after having suffered a lot of troubles with the government, but the players put aside all the troubles by making it into the quarter-final stage of the competition. The ultimately lost to one of the favourites for the tournament – Germany – 4-2. Despite this heavy defeat, Santos has said that he can be proud of his players because they gave their all.

Santos has also said that he cannot explain how much the Greece national team missed the presence of Giorgos Karagounis. According to Santos, Giorgos Karagounis could have made the difference between taking the game into extra time and having lost the match 4-2. The 35-year-old Giorgos Karagounis missed the match after having been suspended for the encounter. The German national team manager Joachim Loew was able to rest a number of his high profile players like Mario Gomez and Thomas Müller. Yet, he was still able to get a great performance out of the players like Miroslav Klose and Reus.

“If [we] could have scored once, we could have changed the game completely. We could have got something more from it. We entered the pitch with great determination in the second half and scored an equaliser, but we quickly conceded a second goal that cut off our wings. But in any case, I have to congratulate my players for their efforts. The mental [strength] and the passion we displayed in our games is what we want to remember from this tournament. But we will have to correct some mistakes that we certainly made throughout the tournament,” said Santos after the match.