A bite-size guide to Greece
Previous meetings…
Games Played: 3 Games: Won: 0; Games Drawn:1; Games Lost: 2
April 26 2000: Republic of Ireland 0-1 Greece (friendly)
November 20 2002: Greece 0-0 Republic of Ireland (friendly)
November 14 2012: Republic of Ireland 0-1 Greece (friendly)
Friday’s clash will be the first competitive fixture between the two nations.
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Last meeting…
November 14 2012: Republic of Ireland 0-1 Greece (friendly)
Former Roma and Watford player Jose Holebas scored the only goal of the game in the 29th minute in front of 20,000 fans at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium
Republic of Ireland team: D Forde, S Coleman, S Ward, C Clark, J O’Shea, G Whelan, J McCarthy, J McClean, S Cox, S Long, R Brady Used subs: K Andrews, W Houlahan, K Doyle, A Keogh, D Meyler
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Greece’s 2022 Uefa Nations League results…
P 6, W 5, L 1, F 10, A 2
Cyprus 1-0 Greece
Greece 3-1 Northern Ireland
Greece 2-0 Kosovo
Greece 3-0 Cyprus
Kosovo 0-1 Greece
Northern Ireland 0-1 Greece
First place finish in Group C2
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Euro 2024 qualifying so far…
Greece recorded a comfortable opening day 3-0 win over Gibraltar in Faro back in March. Giorgos Masouros (11), Emmanouil Siopis (45), Anastasios Bakasetas (58) got the goals for Gustavo Poyet’s side. Greece had 30 attempts on goal to Gibraltar’s one, they hit the woodwork three times and launched 63 attacks to Gibraltar’s nine.
The average age of Greece’s starting line-up was just over 28-years-old. Nine of the starting line-up play their football outside of the Greek Super League. Midfielder Petros Mantalos of AEK Athens and goal-getter Giorgos Masouras of Olympiacos were the only two homegrown players.
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The manager…
THE much-travelled Gus Poyet won an FA Cup, Copa Del Rey, two UEFA Cup Winners' Cups and a Copa America, making 180 Premier League appearances for Chelsea and Tottenham in a playing career that spanned 16 years.
In an interview with the football magazine Four-Four-Two in 2018, the former Uruguayan international revealed the key games during his playing career: being part of the Real Zaragoza team that beat Arsenal in the 1995 Cup Winners’ Cup final when Nayim lobbed David Seaman from the halfway line in the dying seconds.
He highlighted Uruguay winning a penalty shoot-out against Brazil to win the 1995 Copa America.
The 55-year-old also has fond memories of scoring the only goal in the 1998 Super Cup as Chelsea saw off Real Madrid.
Since he retired from playing, Poyet has managed in six different countries and many of his departures have been controversial. After guiding League One side Brighton into the Championship in 2011, he won the Manager of the Year award.
However, he was famously sacked by the club while working ‘live’ on air as a BBC pundit in 2013 soon after losing a promotion play-off to Crystal Palace.
Former Spanish midfielder Vicente, who’d played under Poyet at Brighton, wasn’t his greatest fan and launched a scathing attack on his man-management skills.
Vicente told The Brighton Argus: “He is the worst person I've come across in football. For me he is a selfish person, very egocentric. I say that because it's how I feel.
“I won't talk badly about my team-mates, because they have been fantastic with me. What I think is unacceptable is that the manager makes fun of his players. I've seen things here that I have never seen in my career. If you miss with a shot in training, he makes fun. For me, that is unacceptable in football.”
Poyet would later enjoy a one-season managerial spell with AEK Athens in 2015/16 where he won the city derbies against serial champions Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and PAOK. He fell foul of the AEK board when he told reporters that he would be leaving at the end of the season.
He enjoyed managerial stints in Spain, China, France and Chile before returning to Greece to take the national team reins from the former Dutch international John van’t Schip who resigned after the side failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup finals, finishing a distant third behind Spain and Sweden.
Poyet has won six out of seven games since taking charge, with the sole loss coming away to Cyprus in last season’s Nations League.
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Ones to watch…
GUS Poyet has called up top scorer in the Dutch league – the Eredivise – 23-year-old Anastasios Douvikas who has scored 20 goals in 33 league games, but has managed just one for this country.
But arguably the bigger threat to Irish hopes is the more experienced Giorgos Masouras of Olympiacos. A regular scorer for his country, he was voted Greek Player of the Year for the last two seasons and was on target against Gilbratar. Has bagged just as many assists as goals for Olympiacos over the past number of seasons and can be difficult to nail down in the Greek attack.
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The venue…
SITUATED in northern Athens, the OPAP Arena, formerly known Hagia Sophia Stadium, holds 32,500 and is the home to league champions AEK Athens.
The site is the club’s spiritual home before their beloved Nikos Goumas Stadium was mowed down in 2003 after 73 years playing there.
For almost 20 years AEK played their home games at the over-sized Olympic Stadium before they moved back to a new two-tier arena. OPAP won the naming rights which is a bookmaking company and lottery producer.
Building work began in July 2017 and was completed in the summer of 2022. The first game to take place there was between AEK Athens and AO Ionikos on October 3 2022.
Outside the front of the stadium is a two-headed eagle, the historical symbol of AEK Athens. The stadium will host next season’s Europa Conference Cup final.
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The domestic scene…
AEK Athens were crowned Super League champions for the 13th time with city rivals Pananthinaikos finishing five points adrift after the play-offs, ending Olympiacos’s stranglehold on the title.
Politically, AEK and Pananthinaikos are poles apart. AEK would have a left-leaning ethos in honour of their refugee roots while Pananthinaikos would be of the bourgeoisie tradition.
AEK went on to complete a league and cup double thanks to a 2-0 win over PAOK in the cup decider that was played behind closed doors due to fears of crowd trouble.
The Greek town of Volo hosted the decider while at one stage there were discussions about holding the cup final abroad, with Crystal Palace briefly mooted as a possible venue.
Persistent violence between ultra groups has stopped away fans attending derby matches.
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European failings…
GREECE had no representatives in the knock-out stages of European football this season for the first time in 17 years. Last year’s champions Olympiacos suffered a humiliating Champions League qualifier exit to Maccabi Haifa, dropped into the Europa League group stages where they lost all their games to Nantes, FK Qarabag and SC Freiburg.
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High-profile Greek flops…
JAMES Rodriguez, one of Colombia’s heroes at the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil, arrived at Olympiacos with high hopes of a career revival. But the 31-year-old former Real Madrid and Everton star failed to live up to the hype and had his contract cancelled at the end of the season.
Former Brazilian international Marcelo spent five months at the club before terminating his contract and moving back home to Fluminense.
Compiled by Brendan Crossan
