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The Greece national football team is the national football team of Greece and is controlled by the Hellenic Football Federation. They are the reigning European Champions and the current Unofficial Football World Champions.
Greece's first appearance in a major tournament was Euro 1980, but their first win did not come until the first match of Euro 2004, a 2-1 win over the hosts Portugal. Greece went on to win the tournament, stunning defending champions France in the quarterfinals and the heavily favored Czech Republic in the semifinals before beating Portugal for a second time, 1-0, in the final. Bookmakers were giving odds of about 80-1 to 150-1 for the Greeks before the tournament.
Greece made its first appearance in a major tournament at the Euro 1980 in Italy after qualifying as first - under the guidance of Alketas Panagoulias- from a group that included USSR and Hungary, both world powers back then. In the final tournament, Greece was drawn into group A with West Germany, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia. In their first game, Greece held the Dutch 0-0 until 65' when the only goal of the game was scored by Kist. Three days later Greece played Czechoslovakia in Rome. After halting the Czechoslovakians to a 1-1 at the end the first half, Greece eventually lost 3-1. In their last game, Greece earned a 0-0 draw against eventually winners West Germany culminating what was considered a decent overall performance in the team's maiden presence in a final phase of any football competition.
The team's success in qualifying for the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the USA, marked the first time they had made it to the FIFA World Cup finals. Greece finished first and undefeated in their qualifying group, surpassing Russia in the final game. In the final tournament Greece were drawn into group D with Nigeria, Bulgaria, and Argentina. After the successful qualifying campaign, expectations back in Greece were high as no one could imagine the oncoming astounding failure. Most notable reason for this complete failure was the fact that legendary coach Alketas Panagoulias opted to take a squad full of those players -though most of them aging and out of form - that helped the team in the qualifying instead of new emerging talents seeing it as a reward for their unprecedented success. It is worth mentioning that all players of the squad included the 3 goalkeepers took part in those 3 games, something very rare. In their first game against Argentina, Greece lost 4-0. Four days later Greece suffered another 4-0 blow from Bulgaria and in their final game lost to Nigeria 2-0. In the end, Greece were eliminated in the first round by losing all three games, scoring no goals and conceding 10, thus making one of the worst records in World Cup history.Greece failed to qualify for the Euro 1996 finishing 3rd in the group behind Russia and Scotland. In their 1998 World Cup qualifying tournament the team finished only one point shy of second placed Croatia as, despite a plethora of missed chances, it was halted to a 0-0 draw by the eventual Group winners, the Danish national football team. In their Euro 2000 qualifying group, Greece finished again in third place, two points behind second placed Slovenia in a highly disappointing campaign that saw the team lose at home to Latvia and led to the sacking of then national coach Kostas Polychroniou. In the 2002 World Cup qualifying Greece finished a disappointing fourth in their group behind England, Germany and Finland making them change their coach Vasilis Daniil in the process and replace him with Otto Rehhagel. Highlights of the campaign were the humiliating 5-1 defeat in Helsinki and the 2-2 draw that followed in England both the first 2 games of the soon to become legendary German coach at the reigns of Greek national team.