The Football Tragic

If there has been one team in recent times that has shown that the age of the man-marker is not dead, it was the Greek side that carried off an extraordinary triumph at Euro 2004.

It was a triumph for underdog fanciers rather than lovers of the beautiful game, admittedly. Otto Rehhagel's men won few points for style, and indeed Paul Gardner, World Soccer's resident frother-at-the-mouth, has made the 2004 Greeks into the footballing devil incarnate, frequently using them as the topic of his monotonous tirades.

Yet as a defensive unit, they were hugely impressive, conceding not a single goal in the knockout phase, against opposition of the quality of France, Portugal and the Czech Republic (with Milan Baros in the sort of form he has rarely shown, either before or since). So how did it all work?

Unlike the Italians of 1982, the Greeks had a resolutely negative (but very effective) sweeper in the mighty Traianos Dellas. The stopper was Michalis Kapsis, detailed to mark the point-man in each side. Konstantinos Katsouranis, nominally a midfielder, often morphed into a central defender at times, leaving the hard-working Theo Zagorakis to take charge in the engine room.

But it was to the side of these central men that the real story played itself out.

Zagorakis was named player of the tournament in the wash-up. Other contenders, in the eyes of many, were the redoubtable Dellas, and Angelos Charisteas with his crucial goals. But none of these really deserved the accolade.

The real player of the tournament, in my view, was the fullback Giourkas Seitaridis, who gave one of the most outstanding performances by a defender in modern times.

While Kapsis was given the job of shadowing the focal point of the attack, Seitaridis, the youngest and quickest of the Greek defenders, had the job of tailing the greyhound in the opposition ranks, be he striker, winger or a combination of the two. And so it was that, in successive games, Seitaridis nullified Thierry Henry, Milan Baros and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Whether they went through the centre or out wide, Seitaridis was always there: harrying, anticipating, tackling when necessary, and committing surprisingly few fouls. Otto Rehhagel had clearly decided that the three attackers in question possessed such pace and trickery that allowing them to be pitted against one of the other, slower, Greek defenders - Kapsis and the left-back Panagiotis Fyssas were both the wrong side of thirty - was asking for trouble. So man-marking it was.

One of the factors I mentioned in my initial piece that discouraged the use of man-marking in modern football was the likelihood of defenders getting worn out, after covering so much ground. At Euro 2004, Rehhagel and Greece found an interesting solution.

They had within their ranks Giorgos Karagounis, a somewhat under-rated midfielder with an uncanny knack for...drawing fouls. Accordingly, the go-to man in attack was Karagounis. A feint here, a swivel there - and down he went. And the Greeks took, it must be said, an eternity over many of their set-pieces at the event.

A necessary breather for the defenders - and the final link in the chain of Greece's crude but remarkably successful strategy.