Greek PM joining fans in Portugal
ATHENS, Greece -- Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis will lead an army of around 6,000 fans to Portugal to support their side in Sunday's Euro 2004 final against the host nation.
"To us, it's like the team have already won the cup," Karamanlis said, reflecting Greeks' feelings that the team's success has gone beyond the wildest dreams.
A fleet of up to 60 planes will be chartered to carry the fans to Lisbon where they will join the 10,000 Greek fans already in Portugal.
And after facing a barrage of criticism on Athens' preparations to host this summer's Olympics, Games' organizers said the football team's success had boosted their own confidence.
"The players and the coach served as the best ambassadors of the cause of the Olympics," chief Games organizer Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said in a written statement.
"They sent out to the world the image of a Greece united with team-spirit, a Greece that does not retreat from difficulties, a Greece that is winning," she added.
Millions of Greeks took to the streets on Thursday night to celebrate the 1-0 win over the Czech Republic that sent their team into the final.
Many turned up late for work on Friday, bleary-eyed and hoarse from shouting but still with football the number one topic of conversation.
Even traders at the Athens bourse said they would rather talk football tactics than watch their screens for financial news.
"Never before have we seen this kind of massive reaction, it is literally a reaction of the national collective sub conscious from a country that had hardly achieved international recognition in any field," said Marianna Pyrgioti, news manager of radio station Flash96.
"Greeks don't normally get to feel as Brits or Germans do about the power and importance of their country. There is a national element to this, it's beyond football, it's the case of the small country that at this moment, feels like a big country," Pyrgioti added.
The game's extra-time first-half, in which the Greeks clinched victory with a last-minute silver goal by defender Traianos Dellas, hit a record 84.6 percent viewer rating, agency AGB Hellas said Friday.
And even Greece's conservative Orthodox Church joined in the celebrations.
"We're near the absolute summit... I thank God who blessed us to realize that universal victory and pray for the conquest of the cup," Greek church leader Christodoulos said in a written statement
Greece coach Otto Rehhagel does not believe his side have an advantage in Sunday's final because the referee is fellow German Markus Merk.
"I have known him (Merk) since he was a boy, since the age of 15," Rehhagel told reporters.
"He is a very strict referee and he once sent me to sit in the stands so I don't think there will be any problem."
Rehhagel coached Bundesliga sides Werder Bremen, Bayern Munich and Kaiserslautern.
He has been hounded by German media since Greece's stunning 2-1 victory over Portugal in the opening Euro 2004 match, particularly after Germany's first-round exit.
