Santos gives Greek players 11 out of 10 for passion, sees bright future

Outgoing Greece coach Fernando Santos has clarified comments regarding his former players, praising their passion for soccer but lamenting the fact that they did not play with cooler heads during extra time of their second round World Cup match against Costa Rica, which led to the national side being eliminated from the tournament.

"I think I was unable to pass the message to the players when we went to extra time because that was a very difficult moment as the players were very tired and anxious,” Santos told Portuguese state broadcaster RTP on Wednesday night. “We were unable to keep a cool head, to think more of the team. But I'm not criticizing any particular player. If we had played differently in extra time we could have obtained an even more historical result.”

Santos took Greece into the second round of the World Cup for the first time in its history but appeared unhappy about the performance of his players. However, the Portuguese coach insisted in his interview that he felt the Greek players had given their utmost.

"No one can say to these players that they don't have passion for the game,” he said. “I don't know any other players with such passion. I've always told them that if I had to give them a score on a 0-10 scale, I would give them 11.”

However, the former AEK and PAOK manager admitted that Greece had been weak in attack and that players often tried to make up for this through individual efforts, which at times held the team back.

“In organized attacks we always had a problem,” he said. “In organized attacks our players were very individualistic and in a tournament like this that individualism damages the confidence of the team when it attacks."

“I didn't want to criticize the players in any way. The...