The latest round of Greek elections allowed Antonis Samaras to form a coalition government with a narrow victory over the anti-bailout SYRIZA bloc. After being sworn in on Tuesday Samaras restored a minor degree of security to the country, but Greece’s position inside of the Eurozone is by no means assured.
Greece’s position as competitors at Euro 2012 is under even more scrutiny as the low-asset class Hellenic side face a robust, world-beating German engine of efficiency this evening. Joachim Loew’s German side are three-to-one favourites to win the tie with Fernando Santos’ Greeks given a one-in-ten chance of victory by the bookies.
With their talismanic captain Karagounis facing a suspension many Greek hopes now lie with the new Prime Minister’s namesake, Georgios Samaras, who as Celtic fans will attest is capable of a moment of brilliance that could potentially stun the watching world.
Although many fans on both sides including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have played down the heightened political significance of this fixture as merely an ‘important sporting event’ it is clear for all to see that there is more at stake tonight at the Gdansk arena in Poland.
Broadcasting stations have been advised not to adjust the crowd volume too high during the German national anthem as many fear that the Greek tourism board’s plea for respect and humility will fall on death ears. Although it is more than likely that the only source of deafness will echo from the mouths of a thousand angry Greeks.
There have been talks of Greece’s two banks of four suffering the same fate as their credit banks and capitulating, but their football team has always shown a certain resilience that their economy has not. The German squad is valued at roughly six times that of the Greek team highlighting the extent to which the two countries are separated in monetary terms.
When it comes to labour and workforce, the Greeks work longer hours, but the Germans get more done which makes for a mouth-watering contest. Most of the European money is on/in Germany, with a growing sum of the Greek cash flow residing under the mattresses of its scared citizens.
A Greek exit tonight could send resentment towards the Germans to an even more ferocious level but a David and Goliath-esque victory could represent a cathartic sense of poetic justice that even the most efficient German worker would find it hard not to appreciate… who am I kidding of course they won’t appreciate it but the rest of us probably will.
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