Remembering Greece’s surprise triumph at Euro 2004, 20 years on

If Turkey or Switzerland are looking for further inspiration to achieve the impossible and win Euro 2024, they need not look far.

It has been 20 years since Greece went to the European Championship hoping to score a single goal. But against all odds and logic, they left Portugal winning the title. It is still considered the biggest upset in the history of the competition, and even if Turkey or Switzerland were to win this edition in Germany, it would not be comparable to what Greece achieved at Euro 2004.

Switzerland have reached at least the round of 16 in the last six major tournaments and knocked out France at the last Euro. Turkey finished third at the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2008.

For Greece, on the other hand, what they did came completely by surprise.

“We can’t kid ourselves and say we expected it,” defender Nikos Dabizas told ESPN. “Before that, Greece qualified for the Euro in Italy in 1980 and then the World Cup in America in 1994. We had a tough group in the United States and we played Nigeria, Bulgaria and Argentina and we didn’t manage to score a single goal.”

“It was quite difficult to accept. That legacy, in a negative sense, was following us and when we qualified 10 years later, we all came together and said, ‘Listen guys, we have to be competitive and represent our country in the best possible way.

“We wanted to score a goal and win a game. Do better than what we did in America. That was what we had in mind. That was our honest approach.”

Given what had happened in the United States (10 goals conceded and no goals scored in three one-sided defeats), things could hardly have been expected to improve at the Euros, especially after Greece were drawn in a group with Spain, Russia and hosts Portugal. The players also had to contend with an attitude at home that considered the national team not as important to the fans as their fierce loyalty to Olympiacos and Panathinaikos.

But everything began to change with a surprise win over Portugal in the opening match. Cristiano Ronaldo, 19, scored the first of his 130 international goals, but Greece held on to win 2-1.

“Our greatest quality as a group was to be very pragmatic and very realistic in the way we approached the games,” Dabizas recalls. “We had to play the opening game against the host country, Portugal, with all their big stars like Luis Figo and a young Cristiano Ronaldo. Then it was Spain.

“We were very strong in our approach and played to our abilities. We didn’t try to do things that we couldn’t do and that didn’t represent us. We had a great fighting spirit between us and that was the main thing that helped us.”

The victory over Portugal was followed by a respectable draw against Spain, but the 2-0 defeat against Russia in the last group match allowed Greece to qualify. It was only saved by Portugal’s victory over Spain, which allowed Greece to qualify in second place in the group.

The reward was a quarter-final against France. One member of the team was due to get married shortly afterwards and decided to leave the arrangements as they were, while others kept their post-tournament holiday plans.

After all, they had no chance against the defending champions, led by two of the best players in the world in Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry, and in all likelihood they would soon be back home.

“One of our teammates was getting married,” Dabizas says. “It was planned before the tournament and he had to make a decision. He dropped out because we thought we probably weren’t going to qualify against Zidane, Henry, (Robert) Pires and (Patrick) Vieira. We thought that was the end. We were very proud to qualify from the group but it was France, you know? It’s not that we had dropped out but we had left our plans for the summer as they were. In the end, he had an excuse not to get married!”

A second-half goal from the big, physical centre-forward Angelos Charisteas and a combative defence were enough to win 1-0 and eliminate France. It also prompted early criticism of Greece’s pragmatic style and complaints that 65-year-old German coach Otto Rehhagel was basic, limited and boring.

“We didn’t worry about it,” Dabizas explains. “We knew our strengths. We weren’t Brazil, we weren’t France. We had to adapt our game to a style that suited us. We knew we had to be strong defensively and then be very effective in attack, counterattack and on set pieces.”

“You wouldn’t ask a Pep Guardiola team to play long balls. To play differently would have been suicide. It didn’t suit us. We didn’t care about the criticism.”

Greece, happy to be there up until that point, beat France, which was the starting point for what was to come. They beat the Czech Republic 1-0 in the semi-final to set up a rematch with Portugal in the final. And as they had done with Zidane and Henry, Greece neutralised Ronaldo and Figo and another goal from Charisteas from a corner – their only attempt on target – gave Greece a 1-0 win. At the final whistle, Greece were European champions.

“It was pure joy,” Dabizas recalls. “It was something in my brain that took over and we were jumping like a child. We were like children, jumping on each other. When we got back to Greece, it was incredible.”

“There were people all the way from the airport to the city centre. For 30 kilometres they were waiting for us in the street with flags. When we arrived at the Panathaikios stadium, it was a moment I will never forget. That was the moment I first realised what was happening in the country. When we came back, we realised what we had done and what we had achieved.”

Turkey and Switzerland are chasing a similar goal through to the quarter-finals of Euro 2024. As quarter-final outsiders among heavyweights like Germany, France, England and Spain, they are flying the underdog flag that Greece flew in spectacular fashion 20 years ago.

“It’s something very rare and I don’t think it can happen again,” Dabizas said. “Surprises tend to disappear in modern football. What we did will never go away. It’s something we’re very proud of.”