The Greek national football team is determined to lift the mood back home during the Euro 2012 despite the country’s huge economic woes causing worry and fear, striker Giorgos Samaras told Reuters.
“I don’t like to say big words or throw promises around,” he said. “We are all thinking about the [deciding Euro qualifier] against Croatia and how we managed to help people celebrate and escape from their daily problems for a while. That is what we will try to do again. I do not know how far we will go and what we can do, but with our joy for playing football, we want to give joy to Greeks. We are a young team and the mood in the squad is phenomenal and that is where everything starts.”
Euro 2004 champions, Greece, face co-hosts Poland in the tournament’s opening game in Warsaw on Friday, June 8th. Eight years ago Greece had surprisingly won the Euro finals in Portugal causing a wave of endless celebration in the country.
Now, on the brink of bankruptcy and with talk of a potential Eurozone exit swirling, the country is facing a second general election in one week’s time with sharp austerity measures angering Greeks.
“I see all the fan mail we get and that is additional motivation for us,” said defender Avraam Papadopoulos. “We want to make people happy, [those] who have been with us both during good times as well as bad.”
(Source: Reuters)
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