Greeks make history with win

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This article was published 18/06/2010 (5952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa — Now that Greece has scored a goal and won a match, this World Cup is a success.

The Greeks claimed their first World Cup win by rallying to beat 10-man Nigeria 2-1 in Group B on Thursday. Vassillis Torosidis poked home a loose ball in the 71st minute after a mistake from Nigeria goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama to make history for Greece, which had lost all four previous World Cup matches, including three in 1994.

“We badly wanted this, because we’d never even scored a goal in the World Cup before,” Dimitris Salpingidis said. “I can’t say whether we’ll make it out of the group. But I can say that we’ll leave with our heads held high.”

To advance to the second round, the Greeks almost certainly must get at least a draw with powerful Argentina on Tuesday. A difficult assignment for sure.

So they are revelling in this victory.

“Of course it would have been a shame to go home without a point, so we’re very pleased to have scored points here,” Greece coach Otto Rehhagel said.

Nigeria opened the scoring in the 16th minute at Free State Stadium when Kalu Uche’s curling free kick from 35 yards deceived everyone, particularly goalkeeper Alexandros Tzorvas, who moved the wrong way.

But the game changed in the 33rd minute when Nigeria midfielder Sani Kaita was shown a straight red card for kicking Torosidis.

“Yeah, of course it’s of big importance,” Nigeria coach Lars Lagerbäck said of the ejection. “Everybody who knows anything about football knows if you’re playing with 10 men on this level it’s much more difficult to win a game.”

Salpingidis equalized in the 44th minute with a deflected shot before Torosidis’ winner.

The win was hailed by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who delayed a news conference at an EU summit in Brussels to watch the game.

“The boys made us proud,” Papandreou said. “At a time when Greece has had a lot of bad press recently (due to the debt crisis), I think it was a very important revival for all of us.”

— The Associated Press