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  • Greece 0 -Armenia 0

    Sunday 1 June 2008
    Greece struggle to hit their stride
    by Vassiliki Papantonopoulou

    Defending champions Greece completed their friendly preparations for
    UEFA EURO 2008??¢ with a goalless draw against Armenia in a match
    high on effort but low on quality in Offenbach am Main in front of an
    enthusiastic, largely Greek crowd.

    Nikopolidis save
    Otto Rehhagel's side had markedly improved defensively from their 3-2
    loss against Hungary last Saturday, but struggled creatively and
    threatened little around their opponents' area. Armenia started
    brightly and had a good chance to go in front on 15 minutes when Levon
    Pachajyan, after taking advantage of an error by Sotiris Kyrgiakos,
    shot from the edge of the box only for Greece goalkeeper Antonis
    Nikopolidis to save well at full stretch. Five minutes later,
    Nikopolidis was called on again to block Marcos Piseli's long-range
    effort.

    Charisteas miss
    Greece had their best chance on 30 minutes, when Giorgos Karagounis
    worked space for himself and sent over a pin-point cross to Dimitris
    Salpingidis, who headed just over. Two minutes later, Armenian
    goalkeeper Gevorg Kasparov turned away Angelos Basinas's powerful
    drive, then was thankful to see Angelos Charisteas shoot wide after
    failing to properly deal with a Giourkas Seitaridis cross.

    Substitutions
    Rehhagel made five substitutions after the break and the rhythm
    dropped as a consequence. Even so, Greece came close to breaking the
    deadlock on 51 minutes, only for Kasparov to deny substitute Giorgos
    Samaras's curling right-foot shot with a spectacular save. Ararat
    Arakelyan then headed wide for Armenia on 85 minutes before producing
    a more telling contribution at the other end, clearing under the nose
    of Charisteas after Kasparov had been unable to gather Kostas
    Katsouranis's stinging drive from distance. Greece leave Germany on
    Tuesday morning and travel for Salzburg, where they play all their
    Group D games, kicking off the defence of their title on 10 June
    against Sweden.

    Greece: Nikopolidis, Seitaridis, Kyrgiakos, Dellas (Antzas 46),
    Spiropoulos (Torosidis 46), Basinas, Katsouranis, Karagounis
    (Patsatzoglou 46), Charisteas, Salpingidis (Gekas 46), Amanatidis
    (Samaras 46).

    Armenia: Kasparov, Hovsepyan, Arzumanyan, Arakelyan, Voskanian, Hamlet
    Mkhitaryan (A Minasyan 65), Ghazaryan (Melkonyan 60), Piseli (Hakobyan
    54), Pachajyan, Lazarian, Tadevosyan.
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