A decade ago in Portugal, Greece made history winning the Euro 2004 Championship.
It’s very fitting that now they’ve returned to take on the team once again, for an ever bigger championship.
Both teams have qualified for the World Cup, and will take each other on in the first friendly with the preliminary Cup squad.
Things don’t look good for Portugal, with key players in doubt.
Cristiano Ronaldo is still feeling the effects of a thigh injury sustained late in the season, and didn’t take part in a late afternoon training session with the national team. He remains a doubt for the friendly in Lisbon and will most likely be benched to make sure he will be available for the Cup.
For Greece, defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos says the team still feels underdone, and will be using the friendly to see what needs to be fixed in training before the team lands in Brazil.
“In the first friendly against Portugal we will face a very good team and on its home pitch,” he says.
“We will be able to see what work has been done and to see if we should improve some things by doing something different.”
Greece beat the Portuguese 2-1 in March 2008 in their only meeting since that famous 2004 championship victory.
Portugal have won four of their last five games and will be eager to maintain their momentum ahead of subsequent friendlies against Mexico and Republic of Ireland. Greece, on the other hand, fell 0-2 against South Korea in a friendly in March and will be desperate to start on the right foot in June.
It will also be a bit of a homecoming for Greece’s Portuguese coach, Fernando Santos, who will be lapping up the home crowd atmosphere.
Following Saturday’s match in Lisbon, Greece heads to the United States for two friendlies against Nigeria (June 3) and Bolivia (June 6) before setting up base camp in Brazil at Aracaju.
Source: Kathimerini, Sportal