Greece keep faith in old guard

Papastathopoulos suffers Rehhagel axe

Last updated: 28th May 2008   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Greece keep faith in old guard

Rehhagel: Defending champion

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Reigning European champions Greece have cut defender Socratis Papastathopoulos from their final Euro 2008 squad.

Manager Otto Rehhagel has maintained the same squad which helped Greece book a place in Austria and Switzerland, with only Papastathopoulos suffering the chop from the 23-man line-up.

The squad which travelled to Budapest for the friendly against Hungary on Saturday, otherwise, remains unchanged.

Rehhagel has also kept faith in the players who helped Greece win Euro 2004 as seven of the team which started the final against Portugal four years ago are included.

Midfielder Angelos Basinas will captain the side this summer, despite sustaining a minor ankle injury against Hungary, while goalkeeper Antonis Nikopolidis should also recover from a pulled thigh muscle.

Greece begin their Group D campaign against Sweden on 10th June before taking on Russia and Spain.

Squad in full:

Antonis Nikopolidis (Olympiakos), Costas Chalkias (Aris Salonika), Alexandros Tzorvas (OFI Crete); Giourkas Seitaridis (Atletico Madrid), Christos Patsatzoglou (Olympiakos), Nikos Spyropoulos (Panathinaikos), Traianos Dellas (AEK Athens), Loukas Vintra (Panathinaikos), Vassilis Torosidis (Olympiakos), Sotiris Kyrgiakos (Frankfurt), Ioannis Goumas (Panathinaikos), Paraskevas Antzas (Olympiakos); Angelos Basinas (Real Mallorca), Stelios Giannakopoulos (Bolton), Georgios Karagounis (Panathinaikos), Costas Katsouranis (Benfica), Alexandros Tziolis (Panathinaikos); Giorgios Samaras (Man City/Celtic), Angelos Charisteas (Nurnberg), Dimitris Salpigidis (Panathinaikos), Fanis Gekas (Bayer Leverkusen), Yiannis Amanatidis (Frankfurt), Nikos Liberopoulos (AEK).