Greece squad rift should not be underestimated

By George Georgakopoulos

The reported bust-up in the Greece camp between PAOK’s Giorgos Tzavellas and Olympiakos’s Yiannis Maniatis marks the end of an era in the national team, that started in 2001 with the arrival of German manager Otto Rehhagel. It appears that the domestic problems of Greek soccer have once again destroyed the health of the national team.

Notwithstanding the results of Greece in the 2014 World Cup, the division within the squad with the split between the players of Olympiakos and PAOK constitutes a huge failure not only for the manager, Fernando Santos, but also for the federation.

After the explosive Greek Cup semifinal between PAOK and Olympiakos, when Maniatis and Costas Katsouranis neaarly traded punches, Santos and the federation tried to bury their collective head in the sand and avoid facing the problem.

Katsouranis was advised to issue a public apology just before Greece left for Brazil, there was no response by Maniatis, but the two players, as well as Tzavellas who had also got involved in that infamous tussle at Toumba Stadium remained members of the national team as if nothing had happened between them

Worse, Euro 2004 winner Katsouranis is reported to have threatened Maniatis at Toumba that “with your shenanigans you will be left out of the national team.” If that is not an issue that deserves the national team manager’s decisive intervention, then I do not know what is.

When Rehhagel took over some 13 years ago, he ensured that the rift between the players of AEK and Olympiakos came to an end, by leaving out of the squad a player or two who cared more about themselves and by trying to convince the AEK players who had pledged never to play again for Greece to change their mind. Some of them...