Rehagel: “When they took us seriously, we had already won the Euros – I invited players who didn’t even know how good they were”!

In the national team’s triumph at Euro 2004 “ours” was mentioned Otto Rehagelgiving an interview in Hungarian National Sport. The 85-year-old German coach emphasized that at the beginning everyone underestimated Greece and when they started taking it seriously, it had already conquered the Euro.

Rehagel first spoke about the selection of players for the Portugal tournament, noting: “I invited footballers, who at the time probably didn’t even know how good they were. However, they were very good players, otherwise they would not have been able to achieve the results they achieved later. We won the European competition primarily because the team was made up of very good footballers. Thodoros Zagorakis, for example, was voted the best player of the entire tournament for a reason».

And he continued:The truth is that they did not take us seriously, they despised us. When we won back-to-back matches, our opponents thought it was fine, it worked for them, but they don’t win very often anyway. it is not worth relying on them, studying their game, preparing thoroughly for them. And I told my players: “Until they recognize our style of play, the tournament will be over.” And that’s how it happened. By the time they learned to take us seriously, we had already won the European Championship. However, the Portuguese saw exactly what we were playing, as we faced each other not only in the final but also in the opening match, they criticized our defensive tactics but why didn’t they find a way to address this for the second game? They had about twenty days to do it».

Finally, for the German national team ahead of the Euros in the summer, Rehagel noted:I believe we will beat the Hungarians, but we must not underestimate them for a moment. They are in a similar situation as we were in 2004: Now the Hungarians can be the Greeks, they have nothing to lose so they can pull off a surprise».