Underdogs Excel in Euro 2004

Luis Figo and the Portuguese squad could have been the modern day Vasco da Gamas of their country, if they had beaten Greece in the final on July 4 and won the European Championships. Over, five hundred years ago, Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon to discover a new world and discovered India in 1498 and also Africa and Brazil. The Portuguese football team was also searching for new frontiers. Coached by a Brazilian Luis Felipe Scolari they were trying to re-write history and annex a major international tournament at senior level for the first time. After beating Holland 2-1 in the semi finals, the entire Portuguese population of 10.1 million people believed that Euro 2004 was their year of destiny. The party had begun even before the final.
It was fiesta time all over Portugal. There was an air of expectancy. Giant screens were set up in all the towns from the most northerly city of Euro 2004 venues Braga to the Oxford of Portugal Coimbra, from Porto to Lisbon to watch the final. Houses, shops, hotels and restaurants were decked with the Portuguese colours, green and red scarves and flags. Even the sceptics and radicals who had questioned the wisdom of spending 800 million Euros to build and upgrade stadia in eight cities, where matches were staged, were now converted and joined the party mood.
The religious-minded had lit candles at the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in a church, some 123 kilometres, away from the capital Lisbon. A national icon after his penalty-shoot-out heroics against England,, goalkeeper Ricardo, had even pledged to walk all the way from Lisbon to the holy shrine to light candles, after winning the final. Tee-shirts, embossed with the message, "We are the champions" were printed and distributed. The pressure and over-confidence however took its tool. Sadly for the trio, Figo, Rui Costa and Fernando Couto, who won the World Youth football championships in 1989 and 1991, there will be no mature honour to set the trophies of adolescence.
Instead of Portugal, unfancied Greece made football history. Greece had never won a match in a European championship or World Cup final round (they did not score a single goal in the 1994 World Cup finals) prior to this tournament, finished as champions of Europe. Rated 80-1 outsiders, before Euro 2004 commenced, Greece did not concede a goal in the knock-out phase and upset two former champions France and the Czech Republic. Their 65-year old German coach Otto Rehhagel, nicknamed "King Otto" became the first foreign coach to win a major championship (European or World Cup). Scolari's dreams of becoming the first ever coach to win the World Cup and the European Championships, by coaching teams from different continents were dashed.
Rehhagel's recipe for success, typical Teutonic thoroughness in preparation (he out-thought all his rival coaches in terms of tactics and substitutions) team-spirit and superb fitness. He banished the media, relatives and hangers-on from his training camps and instilled fierce national pride in the Greek squad. It also helped that several of his star players, like defender Trainos Dellas (plays for AS Roma in the Italian league) and striker Angelos Charisteas (plays for Bundesliga champions Werder Bremen) were comparatively fresh as they were mostly substitutes for their club sides. In fact the 6ft. 5ins. tall, Dellas played just 13 games in the entire 2003-04 season for Roma. Only eight of the 23 member Greek squad play their club football abroad.
Euro 2004 is being seen as the end of an era for many stars and as a tournament, which confirms the trend of the gap narrowing between the established and emerging nations. South Korea reaching the semi finals of the 2002 World Cup embellishes this fact. Globalisation and lack of restrictions in recruitment of foreign players in European leagues has helped this equalising trend. Often players from lesser -established football nations now compete against established stars like Zidane, Beckham, Owen, Theirry Henry, Raul, Totti and Del Piero in domestic leagues and so do not get overawed.
Another disturbing trend is the fatigue factor of star players from high-profile leagues like in England, Italy and Spain. Excessive demands by their clubs in the domestic leagues and the competitive UEFA Champions league takes it toll. The World Cup and the European Championships are always held, at the end of the season in the summer months, when the star players are over-burdened having played about 65-70 high-pressure matches for their clubs. UEFA has noted this fact and suggested that all national leagues should be restricted to just sixteen teams, with a mandatory winter break. England's coach Sven Goran Eriksson has supported this plea. Fans love a sporting underdog but not at the cost of leg-weary stars playing walking football.
Above all Euro 2004 will be remembered for the emergence of exciting new talent like Wayne Rooney (England), Arjen Robben (Holland) Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Giourkas Seitaridis and Angelos Charisteas (Greece), dribbling king Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), top-scorer with five goals Milan Barros (Czech Republic) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden).