Skip to content

Sokratis - We fought for Greece

Image: Sokratis Papastathopoulos: The defender felt Greece did what they could

Sokratis Papastathopoulos revealed the team 'fought for the whole of Greece,' despite going down to a 4-2 defeat against Germany.

Head coach felt second German goal proved costly

Sokratis Papastathopoulos revealed the team 'fought for the whole of Greece,' despite going down to a 4-2 humbling at the hands of Germany at Euro 2012. Joachim Low's side made it through to the semi-finals for a record seventh time as Germany ran riot at the PGE Arena in Gdansk. Captain Philipp Lahm, Sami Khedira, veteran striker Miroslav Klose and Marco Reus all got on the score-sheet to cancel out Georgios Samaras' and Dimitris Salpingidis' second-half strikes for the Greeks. Genoa defender Papastathopoulos felt Fernando Santos' side should be proud of their efforts, after making it through to the last eight. "We scored twice. We did what we could," Papastathopoulos said. "Maybe we could have been a bit more careful but we fought hard, we fought for the whole of Greece. "We made it to the last eight and this is very important. The Netherlands didn't make it and we are talking about a very big country in football terms."

Costly

Meanwhile, head coach Fernando Santos felt that the second German goal proved costly. He told reporters: "I said if we could score once it would change it completely and we could get something out of it. "But the bad thing was that we conceded the second really soon and that clipped our wings, but we fought to the last moment." Goalscorer Salpingidis agreed with his coach's view, but was nevertheless proud of Greece's display throughout the tournament. "When we conceded a second goal we had to open up and that cost us," Salpingidis said. "I hope the Greeks got some encouragement from watching us fighting."

Around Sky