A Greek throw-in on the halfway line is taken quickly, and Vassilios Tsiartas whistles a pass long over Ivan Helguera. There, materialising in the Spanish area, is Angelos Charisteas, and he takes the ball down and drives it past Iker Casillas. 1-1. Hola and adios.
Greece lightning. You never know when it might strike. With one counter-attack, Charisteas had sent his side towards a probable quarter-final meeting with England. Portugal had already been burgled. Organised and hardworking, with no stars, but pumped with national pride, could Greece prove the South Korea of Euro 2004? Like the Koreans, they are under a colourful foreign manager: Otto Rehhagel. With his gesticulatory wanderings up and down the touchline, forever pursued by a flustered fourth official, he resembles a psychiatric case weaving down a busy street, being followed by his community nurse.
Rehhagel has been upsetting the footballing order for longer than Charisteas has been alive. In his native Germany, he was called King Otto II because his Werder Bremen team of the 1980s were habitual runners-up, but taking the Bundesliga title from under Bayern Munich’s noses in 1987 changed that, a feat he emulated more than a decade later with newly promoted Kaiserslautern. Now the Greeks call him King Otto II. It is adulatory. Otto — Othon in Greek — was the first king of Greece.
The Germans now call him Rehhakles after Herakles, their spelling of Hercules. Predictably, his counter- attacking philosophy for the Greek team has been dubbed “Trojan Horse tactics”. Initially doubted by the Greek players, who lost 5-1 to Finland in his first match in charge, in September 2001, those tactics are now embraced.
England needed David Beckham to rescue them against Greece in their final qualifier for the 2002 World Cup and, lest anybody be too surprised at their progress at these finals, the Greeks finished ahead of Spain in qualifying for Euro 2004. Rehhagel promised: “We will not go to Portugal as character actors.”
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His choice of metaphor may have been because his best friend is Jurgen Slimm, a Hamburg theatre impresario. This causes a certain amusement among the German press, with which Rehhagel endures a testy relationship.
Likewise, his habit of quoting Goethe. Rehhagel was a house painter before becoming a professional footballer. “Rehhagel likes to present himself as a philosopher,” said one German journalist. “But we know he is really a decorator.”
The Greeks don’t mind what he is. He turns 66 in August, and they were initially sceptical of a coach who was suspected of taking their national job as a nice little earner in the sunshine before his retirement. When Rehhagel declined to move to Athens immediately, commuting instead from Germany and working out of a hotel room, their fears seemed confirmed. Yet soon he reformed the national team, reorganising the administration and infrastructure surrounding the side.
He also won his battle to limit the influence in team affairs of the Greek Football Union. His final stroke was to look beyond AEK, Panathinaikos and Olympiakos for players. The core of his squad comes from those clubs, but Traianos Dellas, their mountainous centre-back, like Charisteas, was unearthed abroad.
When Rehhagel sang the national anthem on Greek television recently, his status as an honorary Hellenic was cemented. England may believe it would be a good quarter-final draw, but beware those Greeks who lie in wait.