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Tuesday, Jul 06, 2004

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THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

AS THE BLUE and white ticker tape sparkled in the night sky at the Stadium of Light in Lisbon, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) crowned a new European football champion, Greece. New — and unheralded. Pre-tournament odds to win: 80 to 1; FIFA ranking: 34; and a domestic league deep in financial crisis. The verdict: Greece would not last beyond the group stage. It is in the nature of football tournaments, however, that sometimes (to use Eduardo Galeano's expression) the small fish eat the big ones, bones and all. Consider, after all, the path that brought Greece to the trophy. A win against Portugal, a spirited draw against Spain, and a defeat against Russia with a goal difference of one, enough to bring the team to the knockout stage. Surely Greece had played above itself; the run could not possibly last. Then it beat France, defending champion and undoubtedly the most extraordinary collection of talent in the tournament, but a team that is often (and notoriously) a little less than the sum of its hugely talented parts. When Greece met the Czech Republic, it marked, defended, and, after Pavel Nedved's exit, shifted gear, until it scored a silver goal at a moment when the Czechs had not a prayer of equalising. In the final against the home team, Greece grit its teeth — and Charisteas scored (as Dellas had in the semi-final) from a header off a corner that left Ricardo (like Cech before him) unable to stop a Greek victory.

As Greece celebrates and Portugal and others lick their wounds, memories will remain of matches that delighted, though the teams that played them faltered before the end. We shall remember the last few minutes of the France-England game, when Zidane, with free-kick and penalty, grabbed the match by the collar and turned it upside down. We shall remember Sweden's 5-0 defeat of Bulgaria, for the simple reason that the fun of football lies in seeing goals scored. We shall remember aggression, goals, and the comeback of the tournament in what was arguably the match of Euro 2004, Netherland vs Czech Republic, 2-3. We shall remember the exuberant 2-2 tie between Denmark and Sweden, enlivened as it was by bad-tempered Italian suggestions that the two teams would play for precisely such a result in order to ensure that Group C sent forth only Scandinavians into the quarter-finals. We shall remember the play of Nedved, Smicer, Baros and towering Koller, and the team that won every match until its semi-final defeat. And who will forget the keenly fought Portugal-England quarter-final, distinguished eventually by the resources that Scolari threw into his attack in the second half, and by the final penalty shootout, tension-ridden to the point of being unwatchable?

In Greece's great legacy to the world, The Iliad, when Hector speaks of his knowledge of how to wage war, he says:

War — I know it well... .

Well I know, shift to the left, shift to the right

my tough tanned shield. That's what the real drill,

defensive fighting means to me. I know it all,

how to charge in the rush of plunging horses, —

I know how to stand and fight to the finish,

twist and lunge in the War-god's deadly dance.

So did the poet's descendants shift to the left, shift to the right, fight defensively, plunge into battle, and stand and fight to the finish. They fought as a team, under a captain and a manager who inspired them, and backed by supporters who laughed and cheered with the audacity and good cheer of people with nothing to lose. Greece had not, until this tournament, been in the final of any major world title; if its victory in Euro 2004 may not have been homeric, it certainly has earned its team a place in football history.

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