Greece’s World Cup dream ended on Sunday when they lost to Costa Rica in a penalty shootout.
But despite the disappointment, Greeks hailed the national team as heroes for having reached the knockout stages of the competition for the first time.
“No tears should be shed for the national team — there should be only pride,” read the headline of the popular news website Nooz.gr .
“We bow before you and say a big thank you. Who would have thought? A moment of misfortune caused the national team to be excluded from the eight best teams in the world,” said the front page commentary.
“You went down like heroes,” read the headline of sports newspaper Goal while the front page of Sport Day said in bold print “Greece Do Not Cry — We managed for the first time in history to reach the final 16 and went down like heroes.”
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras issued a statement congratulating the team, saying: “All Greeks are proud of our national team.”
Greeks have had little to cheer about after six years of recession and many rounds of austerity and as the team faced Costa Rica for a World Cup quarterfinal place, many were clearly hoping that the country could once again pull off a football shock similar to when they won the Euro 2004 Championship.
But Greece succumbed in the penalty shootout to ten-man Costa Rica, whose goalkeeper Keylor Navas kept the score at 1-1 thoughout extra time and then saved Fanis Gekas’ spot kick to give the Central Americans victory.
“It just did not work out well for us in the end, but this is a team that we should all be proud of. Everyone wanted to make the Greek people happy again, but we cannot change the results now,” said captain Giorgos Karagounis before bidding farewell to the national side.
Midfielder Yiannis Maniatis was quoted by the daily Kathimerini newspaper as saying: “We made a great effort. Up to the end we were the better team, but the opponent’s keeper was the hero of the night. In the penalties you need luck, and we were unlucky missing one shot.”
“The most positive thing was that we managed to make the Greek people get out on the streets and celebrate. We tried to achieve the same thing tonight, too, but we just did not make it,” he added.
Striker Giorgos Samaras also put it down to bad luck.
“We did our best but when you lose in the Russian roulette of the shootout, it’s just a matter of fortune. We did not win the game in the 120 minutes when we could. We were unlucky in the goal we conceded, we equalized in the last few minutes, we fought as a team, we have it all and lost as a team,” he said.
Greece’s Portuguese coach Fernando Santos, who is at the end of his contract, was visibly upset by the loss. “We have achieved so many things in these four years, but this is a sad day for us.”
Before the match against Costa Rica, the players wrote to the prime minister to inform him that they were willing to forego the bonuses they had earned for advancing in the tournament so the money could be spent on a new training centre for the national team.
“We do not want extra bonuses, or money, we only play for Greece and its people,” the team said in their message to Samaras.
“All we want is for you to support our effort to find land and to create a sports centre that will house our national team.” Currently, the team trains at a former Athens 2004 Olympics site which is used by other sports teams as well.
