Greece is up by 1 at the half. I'm rooting for Portugal, since it's always good to keep the host country in for a while. Keeps the local fans in attendance.

___________________
FLUSHED THE JOHNS!

GOAL. Greece 2-0. Penalty scored by Angelos Basinas 51th min.

0-2 and fully deserved, too. I'm thoroughly disappointed in how little the Portuguese have shown

Greece are very impressive in this match imho, I wish I didnt pick Pauleta in the squad, he's been rubbish

Greece fully deserve the win!

___________________
How can sound exist if there's no one there to hear it?

oh dear

___________________

MySpace
E-Mail

FT Portugal 1-2 Greece.
Ronaldo scored from a header by a Figo c.k in the 90+3 min.
Greece played well

Spain vs Russia up next...

Yay for Greece!

A win against Russia, or a couple of draws would surely see them through.

Could the hosts be going out in the group stages?!

___________________

"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again."

Have to say, Greece were well organised and rarely looked troubled at the back. The midfield pressed well forcing hurried passing from the Portuguese and both goals came from mistakes in the middle due to this pressure. Rui Costa was extremely poor, Deco was also dissapointing, but Ronaldo showed promise and I don't think the tournament is over for Portugal, they looked nervous in the beggining and if they cut out the silly mistakes in the middle of the park they could progress into the knockout stages!

Apart from that small lapse at the end, greece defended very well. Portugal nvere really got it going and seriously lacked a final product. Fair play to the greeks.

___________________
Keep'er in the pants!

bah, i was being a bit pessimistic already, but wasn't expecting a defeat

the first 15 minutes were absolute shit for us, how in hell did a team that everyone said it was extremely calm and ready for the match end up showing so nervous? paulo ferreira was the biggest disappointment imo, those passes at the beggining directly to the greeks..

must say the team didn't play that bad though, we lacked a lot of luck. not to take the merit away from the greeks, who did a fine match especially tactically and defensively, but i think the defeat was a bit unfair. highlights for ronaldo who did a great game apart from the penalty he commited, and for figo in the first half

30 more games of quality football coming up now

___________________
sempre contra a corrente do jogo

Having Pauleta as a lone target man didn't work at all for Portugal, Greece's defence found it easy to mark him out of the game and once they achieved this Portugal were out of ideas! They were spreading play from one wing to the other, trying to fashion an opening in the Greek defence but the Greeks were having none of it. Somebody mentioned the Greek midfield as well, I thought they did an excellent job hassling Rui Costa, Figo, Deco etc into hurried passes and making mistakes, and really Portugal looked desperate throughout the game.

As the home nation Portugal escaped the qualification rounds but this means it is a while since they last played competitive football as a team, and that showed. You could see that Portugal were clearly the more skillful team but they wanted too much time on the ball, their players were trying to win it single-handedly whilst Greece kept it simple and worked tirelessly as a team to close the Portuguese down. The Greeks went into the game with a very positive attitude and definitely deserve their 3 points.

I'm now looking forward to Portugal v Russia next Wednesday because both sides need a win to qualify. I can see quite a few yellow cards in that game...

Dear oh dear, when will the heavyweight teams get their shit together