Sleepy Greeks pay price for slow start
Reuters - Tuesday 12 June 2012, 19:25
Greece paid the price for a
sleepy start in their 2-1 defeat by the Czech Republic in Euro
2012 Group B on Tuesday and must now beat Russia to have any
chance of staying in the tournament, their coach and players
said.
The Czechs were up 2-0 after only six minutes, leaving
Greece too much to do to get back in the match.
"It was a game that started really badly for us," coach
Fernando Santos, whose team suffered only their second defeat in
23 matches since the 2010 World Cup, told reporters.
"We knew they would pressure us and we failed to respond.
Unfortunately the first 10 minutes really cost us. We did
everything we could to score the equaliser but we couldn't."
A makeshift central defence with Kyriakos Papadopoulos and
Kostas Katsouranis had no time to adjust as the Czechs grabbed a
third-minute lead with Petr Jiracek before Vaclav Pilar added
another three minutes later.
"This is a line-up that delivered a very good second half
against the Polish team [in a 1-1 draw]. That is why I chose
this line-up," said Santos.
The Greeks cut the deficit early in the second half through
substitute Fanis Gekas but failed to find another goal despite
having the upper hand for the remainder of their game.
"In the last 15 minutes we used our hearts more than our
minds and this clearly didn't pay off," said Santos.
They face Russia, who play Poland later on Tuesday, in their
last group match.
"We paid dearly for our very bad start," said midfielder
Giorgos Samaras. "We must now go into that last game and grab
any chances we have left in the tournament. We wanted the win
today. We still have faith in our team and ourselves."
Scorer Fanis Gekas said the group was still open.
"This third game is a final for us," he said. "The group is
still open and everyone can advance so we won't give up. We will
keep at it."