Graham Wood

WE CANNOT say anything else apart from that our opponents were better than us,” said Greece coach Otto Rehhagel after his team produced a performance to forget on Wednesday 3 March, going down 2-0 to a slick Senegal side at the Panthessaliko Stadium in Volos.

 

Sadly that is not the case for the German coach, however, as there is plenty more to be said about an alarmingly disappointing showing in a match which was supposed to mirror Greece’s World Cup group match against Nigeria this June.

 

It is difficult to know where to start. There was the complete lack of urgency and industry for starters, the absence of creativity and purpose, and the worrying failure to deal with the pace and strength of their African opponents.

 

Such was the inept nature of Greece’s football that the 18,000 near-capacity crowd who had turned up to see their national team in the sole home friendly ahead of the South Africa finals must have wondered if there was some mistake and Senegal were the team going to the World Cup rather than their own team.

 

“Senegal showed they are a quality side, with a good passing game and quick players,” admitted Rehhagel, who attempted to put the result down to the flurry of substitutions made at half-time and during the second half.

 

“The fact we made many changes may have influenced the result but this is what we need to do in friendly matches, to use as many players as we can.”

 

“The game could have developed differently if we had scored with out best chance of the first half but, unfortunately, we didn’t get the goal at the right time,” added Rehhagel, referring to his team’s solitary half-chance in the opening 45 minutes when Yiorgos Samaras came within a whisker of making contact with the ball in the six-yard box in the 37th minute.

 

“But, generally, our opponents were better than us over the 90 minutes. We had difficulties because Senegal are a first-class team of great athletes.”

 

Greece, who qualified for the World Cup following a 1-0 aggregate victory over Ukraine in the Eurozone playoffs, struggled to make any kind of impression even after half-time.

 

The Senegalese played a more composed game with greater speed and strength across the pitch and had a world-class striker in captain Mamadou Niang, who was the runaway winner of the man-of-the-match award.

 

The Marseille striker gave the African side the lead at the 71st minute after turning both Greek defenders Nikos Spyropoulos and Sotiris Kyrgiakos and slotting the ball past substitute keeper Kostas Chalkias.

 

Nine minutes later Senegal scored again through a stunning direct free-kick from the edge of the penalty by Guirane Ndaw which flew into the top left corner.

 

It was a true mark of quality which perfectly summed up the contrasting abilities of the teams on the night.

 

“After the match I learned that South Korea (Greece’s other group opponents along with Argentina) defeated Ivory Cost 2-0, so if we want to cope with our group, we still have a lot of work to do,” concluded Rehhagel.

 

In truth, Greece’s coach does have a little time to get his house in order. And the nation’s supporters will be hoping for a vast improvement when they continue their World Cup preparations with matches against North Korea on May 25 and Paraguay on June 2 before kicking off their South African campaign against South Korea on June 12. On the evidence of Wednesday’s display, it seems Rehhagel needs all the time he can get.

 

There was a final, ironic twist to Wednesday’s result, coming as it did on the same day that Greece rose two places to 10th spot in the FIFA world rankings for February. The Volos result is certain to throw them back out of the top-10 again, though.