Here’s a question without an answer: what is the greatest tournament-winning goal ever scored? Despite a lack of superlative silverware clinchers, any debate on the subject remains pointless without considering context. A shock winner (such as the recently departed Alcides Ghiggia silencing the Maracanã in 1950) or a moment of controversy (Geoff Hurst, 1966) will linger longer in the memory than an aesthetic wonder. Sometimes, a tournament’s final, decisive moment assumes this extra significance because it perfectly frames what has gone before.

Golden Goal: Eric Cantona for Manchester United v Liverpool (1996)

Angelos Charisteas's winning goal in the Euro 2004 was far from a classic but it still resonates through Greece's struggles on and off the field.

The 1990 World Cup final, where the canny West Germany overcame an agricultural Argentina, could and should not have been won by anything other than a penalty. The same could be said for Andrés Iniesta’s late winner in Johannesburg in 2010 as Spain – forced to repeatedly pick locks against cunning defences – did so one final, thrilling time. This rule applies, perhaps more than with any other winner, to Euro 2004. History has not been kind to a terrific tournament that was ultimately settled by a scruffy near-post header from a journeyman player – a moment that adds weight to the champions’ reputation as the ultimate spoilers. Then again, to loosely paraphrase Plato, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Angelos Charisteas was a player who was never likely to win any beauty contests. A 6ft 3in centre forward, he played in seven different leagues after breaking through at Aris Thessaloniki, never reaching double figures in a league season as he journeyed from Ajax to Arles-Avignon, from Schalke to Saudi Arabia, in search of a regular starting spot. Yet for one corner of the Mediterranean, his ordinary goal is a thing of true beauty and events on and off the pitch since have only increased its mythical status.

Fifty-seven minutes into the final at Lisbon’s rebuilt Estádio da Luz, the shock finalists Greece won a corner, and what seemed to be a reprieve from deep defending against the hot favourites Portugal. Angelos Basinas delivered an out-swinging corner into the fabled corridor of uncertainty, and Charisteas made the connection, nodding the ball down beyond Ricardo and into the net. The mind’s eye has been kind to Charisteas’s moment of glory, adding a power and panache that is absent from video replays. Charisteas does not make a remarkable run, nor does he plant the ball incisively into the corner as he did in the quarter-final against France. The contact he makes, inching his head forward a fraction ahead of Costinha, sends the ball beyond the stranded Ricardo at a curious angle, while Costinha and Ricardo Carvalho, wedged helplessly either side of the forward, appeal for a free-kick that will never come.

The goal has come to represent a Greek campaign that was derided by many as ugly, defensive and uncompetitive, with the Guardian’s own Barry Glendenning labelling Greece “the only underdogs in history that everyone wants to see get beaten”. Otto Rehhagel’s team were seen as the undeserving beneficiaries of a breathless, beautiful tournament in which Italy, Spain and Germany crumbled in the group stages, Czech Republic left empty-handed after playing some of the finest football seen this century, and France’s own golden generation fell short of retaining their title. Great tournament, shame about the winners – but that is to overlook the fact that two of the heavyweights mentioned above fell to Greece. An ancient nation, recast as unpopular outsiders, taking on the modern-day rulers of Europe – suffice to say that for Greece, it wasn’t the last time.

The road that led to Charisteas’s leap was long, mixing fortune, flair and fortitude as it wound far beyond their three 1-0 knockout victories, all earned with a routine header from a right-wing cross. It arguably began three years earlier at Wembley where, in Rehhagel’s first game in charge, only a signature moment from David Beckham denied them an away win on a day when England, in truth, were outclassed. Fired with new belief, a team without a single win in a major tournament rebounded from two early qualifying defeats to win their final six group games, beating Spain in Zaragoza (yes, by a goal to nil) as they sealed a place in Portugal.

In spite of this, Greece arrived as rank outsiders, with only little Latvia less favoured by seeding or by the odds-makers. As the forgotten guests at Portugal’s opening party, the Greek team watched an opening ceremony framed around a giant medieval ship before they faced the hosts in Porto. On Greek TV, an optimistic commentator told the nation “it’s time for us to become pirates and steal the victory”. Steal it they did, racing into a 2-0 lead, playing expansive, incisive counter-attacking football, before Cristiano Ronaldo scored a late consolation. After drawing 1-1 with Spain, with Charisteas getting his first goal of the tournament, defeat to Russia proved irrelevant as Portugal’s victory over Spain, who haven’t lost a European Championship match since, sent Greece into the quarter-finals.

What happened next, depending on who you ask, was either the finest tactical performance of the century so far, or a trophy robbery that is best forgotten. While it may not have made for a dizzying spectacle, Rehhagel adjusted the team’s shape smartly for each match, playing in a lopsided fashion that destroyed France’s fluidity, keeping a spare man in defence to fight the rapid movement of the Czechs, and then changing shape to nullify Portugal’s wingers – Luís Figo and Ronaldo, no less – in the final. Harking back to that apparently throwaway line from the opening ceremony, Otto’s motley crew earned a nickname that persists to this day; Piratiko – the pirate ship.

The truth is, of course, that setting up to neutralise the opposition is nothing new, even if England routinely made a hash of it in Portugal. Plenty of tournament outsiders – not least Greece themselves – have employed this tactic in recent years without so much as a sniff of silverware. After all, if the Greek victory was so easy, so uninspiring, why has it not happened since? Greece did not require penalties, or even a full period of extra time, to progress – the centre-back Traianos Dellas’s silver goal against the Czechs in the semi-final was as close as they came to cutting it fine. Rehhagel knew that in order for this approach to deliver the ultimate goal, the sucker punch was crucial. Charisteas was central to this approach and so he was used as a spare centre-forward who focused on taking the one chance that could come his way as his team-mates harried and pressed around the pitch.

Charisteas’s international career overlaps with Rehhagel’s reign almost exactly, and the striker saved his best work for his national coach. Just as the goal itself was symbolic of Greece’s incredible, against-all-odds victory, so the scorer was one of the dustiest jewels polished up by the German. Rehhagel wrung every drop of ability from a group of domestic sloggers and European bit-part players. Three Greeks made the team of the tournament, with Theodoros Zagorakis, once of Leicester City, named the best player ahead of a who’s who of millennial superstars. The details of how and why Greece took the trophy ahead of an assortment of golden generations was of little concern to the players as the final whistle went in Lisbon. The widespread incredulity was not confined to the watching world – as Basinas has succinctly put it since, “we couldn’t believe it”.

Euro 2004 took place at a crossroads for Greece, and Europe as a whole. The team’s victory inspired Athens’s Olympic planners, who urged workshy stadium builders to follow the football team’s example and show the world what Greece could do. The tournament began just over a month after an unprecedented EU expansion, with 10 new nations joining the union. Greece’s stunning trophy grab came amidst an era of optimism for the nation and the continent it belonged to. The boom extended to football, with Olympiakos signing Rivaldo and Yaya Touré, with the financial crisis no more than a speculative ripple in the pages of Europe’s more economically conscious publications.

From 2010 to today, Greece’s economic crisis has grown exponentially and the effects have been felt in sport as keenly as in all other walks of life. Athens’ Olympic venues lie in ruins, while Olympiakos are embroiled in a match-fixing scandal and rivals Panathinaikos have not had to update their list of record transfer fees for half a dozen years. For the third traditional heavyweight, AEK Athens, things have been even grimmer. A financial meltdown that was in its infancy in 2004, when player of the tournament Zagorakis grudgingly departed for Bologna, has forced the 11-times national champions to rebuild in Greece’s underfunded amateur leagues.

Club budgets have shrunk by 90% in a decade, as traditional industries like shipping, which once poured cash into the country’s biggest clubs, have dwindled in the gloom of austerity. Fan violence and corruption have spread like a virus, with Golden Dawn, a far-right party with links to football hooliganism, gaining political traction while facing trial for a laundry list of deeply unpleasant crimes. The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has tried and failed to suspend a domestic league that has fallen to economic instability, while the national team, funded by sponsors and still over-achieving at major tournaments, have become an even brighter beacon. As the Greek film-maker Nikos Kavoukidis put it, “what do we have left? Television and football.”

Robbed of the prudent stability offered for over a decade by Rehhagel and his successor, Fernando Santos, Greece’s fall from grace has been spectacular. The team lie bottom of their Euro 2016 qualifying group with two points from an available 18, including an unthinkable double defeat to the lowly Faroe Islands that has done for two managers – Claudio Ranieri and Uruguay’s Sergio Markarián. The Piratiko have also been plundered by Romania and Northern Ireland as their qualification prospects have collapsed. Having maintained a place at the top table in the world rankings for years, Greece have fallen outside the top 40.

Far from offering the respite from domestic woes that fans had hoped, the Greek football team are enduring a continental humiliation that painfully reflects reality, while soured relations with the European family have led Rehhagel to sheepishly return to the spotlight as a cuddly cultural ambassador for Germany. The search for a healthy source of national pride that has followed such straitened times has given Greece’s finest footballing hour an aura that borders on the mythical. The most important unremarkable goal in recent history is also the defining act of a story that extends in all directions from a field in Lisbon – a rough-edged, routine header that will ring through the ages.

As the man himself has said, Charisteas’s one moment in time stands in exalted isolation for the player, for the nation, and for international football. “Even in 50 years’ time, everybody will remember that I scored the goal which made Greece the champions of Europe. We wrote history.” Now that’s something we can all agree on.

The UEFA Euro 2004 Final was a football match played on 4 July 2004 at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, Portugal to determine the winner of UEFA Euro 2004. The match featured tournament hosts Portugal, who went into the match as favourites,^[5] and Greece, playing in only their second European Championship. It was the first time in a major international tournament where both finalists had also played in the opening game of the tournament. Both teams had qualified for the knockout stage from Group A of the tournament's group stage, with Greece winning 2–1 in the teams' earlier meeting.

Greece won the final 1–0, defying odds of 80–1 from the beginning of the tournament,^[6] with Angelos Charisteas scoring the winning goal in the 57th minute.

UEFA Euro 2004 Final
Event	UEFA Euro 2004
Portugal Greece 0 1
Date	4 July 2004
Venue	Estádio da Luz, Lisbon
Man of the Match	Theodoros Zagorakis (Greece)[1]
Referee	Markus Merk (Germany)[2]
Attendance	62,865[3]
Weather	Sunny 25 °C (77 °F) 50% humidity[4]

Route to the final

Portugal		Round	Greece
Opponent	Result	Group stage	Opponent	Result
Greece	1–2	Match 1	Portugal	2–1
Russia	2–0	Match 2	Spain	1–1
Spain	1–0	Match 3	Russia	1–2
Group A winner Pos Team Pld Pts 1 Portugal(H) 3 6 2 Greece 3 4 3 Spain 3 4 4 Russia 3 3 Source: UEFA (H) Host.		Final standings	Group A runner-up Pos Team Pld Pts 1 Portugal(H) 3 6 2 Greece 3 4 3 Spain 3 4 4 Russia 3 3
Opponent	Result	Knockout stage	Opponent	Result
England	2–2 (aet) (6–5 pen.)	Quarter-finals	France	1–0
Netherlands	2–1	Semi-finals	Czech Republic	1–0 (aet)

Match

Details

Portugal	0–1	Greece
Report	Charisteas57'

Greece Vs Portugal Euro 2004 Final Full Match Match

GK 1 Ricardo RB 13 Miguel 43' CB 4 Jorge Andrade CB 16 Ricardo Carvalho LB 14 Nuno Valente 90+3' CM 18 Maniche CM 6 Costinha 12' 60' RW 17 Cristiano Ronaldo AM 20 Deco LW 7 Luís Figo (c) CF 9 Pauleta 74' Substitutions: DF 2 Paulo Ferreira 43' MF 10 Rui Costa 60' FW 21 Nuno Gomes 74' Manager: Luiz Felipe Scolari

GK 1 Antonios Nikopolidis RB 2 Giourkas Seitaridis 63' CB 19 Michalis Kapsis CB 5 Traianos Dellas LB 14 Takis Fyssas 67' DM 21 Kostas Katsouranis CM 7 Theodoros Zagorakis (c) CM 6 Angelos Basinas 45+2' RW 9 Angelos Charisteas LW 8 Stelios Giannakopoulos 76' CF 15 Zisis Vryzas 81' Substitutions: DF 3 Stylianos Venetidis 76' FW 22 Dimitris Papadopoulos 85' 81' Manager: Otto Rehhagel

Man of the Match: Theodoros Zagorakis (Greece)[1] Assistant referees:[2] Christian Schräer (Germany) Jan-Hendrik Salver (Germany) Fourth official: Anders Frisk (Sweden)

Match rules[7] 90 minutes. 30 minutes of silver goalextra time if necessary. Penalty shoot-out if scores still level. Maximum of three substitutions.

Statistics

Overall^[8]

Statistic	Portugal	Greece
Goals scored	0	1
Total shots	17	4
Shots on target	5	1
Ball possession	58%	42%
Corner kicks	10	1
Fouls committed	18	19
Offsides	4	3
Yellow cards	2	4
Red cards	0	0

References

1. ^ ^ab'Theodoros Zagorakis'. UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 4 July 2004. Archived from the original on 5 July 2004. Retrieved 24 June 2012.
2. ^ ^abMezzasalma, Nicole (3 July 2004). 'Just another game – Merk'. UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. Archived from the original on 5 July 2004. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
3. ^ ^ab'Portugal vs. Greece - 4 July 2004'. Soccerway. Perform Group. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
4. ^'History for Lisbon, Portugal'. Wunderground. 4 July 2004. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
5. ^'Greece win Euro 2004'. World Soccer. 4 July 2004. Retrieved 24 May 2008.
6. ^Szreter, Adam (4 July 2004). 'Greece kings of Europe'. Union of European Football Associations. Retrieved 24 May 2008.
7. ^'Format'. UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 3 August 2002. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
8. ^'Team statistics'. UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. 4 July 2004. Archived from the original on 6 July 2004. Retrieved 4 September 2014.

External links

Angelos Charisteas

Greece Vs Portugal Euro 2004 Full Match

Angelos Charisteas (Greek: Άγγελος Χαριστέας, pronounced [ˈaɲɟelos xariˈste.as]; born 9 February 1980) is a Greek former professional footballer who played as a forward.

At club level he has played for Aris Thessaloniki, Werder Bremen, Ajax, Feyenoord, Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke 04, Arles-Avignon, and Al-Nassr.

Internationally, he was capped 88 times by Greece, scoring 25 goals. He was a member of the UEFA Euro 2004 winning team, scoring three goals, including the winning goal in the final against Portugal. He also represented Greece at Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup.

Estádio da Luz

The Estádio da Luz (Portuguese pronunciation: [(ɨ)ˈʃtaðju ðɐ ˈluʃ]), officially named Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica, is a multi-purpose stadium located in Lisbon, Portugal. It is used mostly for association football matches, hosting the home games of Portuguese club S.L. Benfica. It is owned by the club's SAD.

Opened on 25 October 2003 with an exhibition match between Benfica and Uruguayan club Nacional, it replaced the original Estádio da Luz, which had 120,000 seats. The seating capacity was decreased to 65,647 and is currently set at 64,642. The stadium was designed by HOK Sport Venue Event and had a construction cost of €162 million.A UEFA category four stadium and one of the biggest stadiums by capacity in Europe (the biggest of Portugal), Estádio da Luz hosted several matches of the UEFA Euro 2004, including its final, and the 2014 UEFA Champions League Final. Moreover, it was the venue for the New7Wonders of the World announcement ceremony in 2007. In 2014, it was elected as the most beautiful stadium of Europe in an online poll by L'Équipe.As of its fifteenth birthday, Estádio da Luz has welcomed more than 17 million spectators.

Estádio da Luz (1954)

Estádio da Luz (Portuguese pronunciation: [(ɨ)ˈʃtadiu dɐ ˈluʒ], Stadium of Light), officially named Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica, was a multi-purpose stadium located in Lisbon, Portugal.

It was used mostly for football matches and hosted the home matches of S.L. Benfica and the Portugal national team. The stadium was opened on 1 December 1954 and it was able to hold an official maximum of 120,000 people, making it the largest stadium in Europe and the third largest in the world in terms of capacity. Some of the biggest attendances include a game against FC Porto with 135,000 people, the 1989–90 European Cup semi-final against Olympique de Marseille and the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship final between Portugal and Brazil with 127,000 people in each game. It also hosted the 1992 European Cup Winners' Cup Final and the second leg of the 1983 UEFA Cup Final and the 1962 Intercontinental Cup.

Its demolition started in 2002 so the new Estádio da Luz could be built near the same area.

Eurovision Song Contest 2018

The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 was the 63rd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Lisbon, Portugal, following Salvador Sobral's win at the 2017 contest in Kiev, Ukraine with the song 'Amar pelos dois'. It was the first time that the contest was hosted in Portugal, 54 years after the country made its debut.

Organised by the European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, the contest was held at the Altice Arena, and consisted of two semi-finals on 8 and 10 May, and the final on 12 May 2018. The three live shows were hosted by Filomena Cautela, Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah and Catarina Furtado.

Forty-three countries participated in the contest, equalling the record of the 2008 and 2011 editions. Russia returned after their absence from the previous edition, and for the first time since 2011, no country withdrew from the contest.

The winner was Israel with the song 'Toy', performed by Netta and written by Doron Medalie and Stav Beger. This was Israel's fourth victory in the contest, following their wins in 1978, 1979, and 1998, and their first top five placing in more than a decade. This edition also saw Cyprus and the Czech Republic achieve the best result in their Eurovision history, coming in second and sixth place, respectively. Portugal finished in the last place of the final, making it the third time that the host country ranked in the bottom five since 2015. For the first time since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Azerbaijan, Romania, and Russia all failed to qualify for the final. Also, for the first time since 2005, no countries of the Caucasus region (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) participated in the final. The EBU reported that the contest had a worldwide audience of around 186 million viewers, surpassing the 2017 edition by over 4 million.

Football in Greece

Football is the most popular sport in Greece, followed by basketball.

Greece

Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic (Greek: Ελληνική Δημοκρατία), also known as Hellas (Greek: Ελλάς), is a sovereign state located in Southern and Southeast Europe. Its population is approximately 10.7 million as of 2018; Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki.

Situated on the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km (8,498 mi) in length, featuring a large number of islands, of which 227 are inhabited. Eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres (9,573 ft). The country consists of nine geographic regions: Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands (including the Dodecanese and Cyclades), Thrace, Crete, and the Ionian Islands.

Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilisation, being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, Western drama and notably the Olympic Games. From the eighth century B.C., the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as poleis (singular polis), which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Philip of Macedon united most of the Greek mainland in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great rapidly conquering much of the ancient world, from the eastern Mediterranean to India. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century B.C., becoming an integral part of the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire, which adopted the Greek language and culture. The Greek Orthodox Church, which emerged in the first century A.D., helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World. Falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence.

Greece is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. Its economy is the largest in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the tenth member to join the European Communities (precursor to the European Union) and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. It is also a member of numerous other international institutions, including the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).

Greece's unique cultural heritage, large tourism industry, prominent shipping sector and geostrategic importance classify it as a middle power. The country's rich historical legacy is reflected in part by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Greece national football team

The Greece national football team (Greek: Εθνική Ελλάδος, Ethniki Ellados) represents Greece in international football and is controlled by the Hellenic Football Federation, the governing body for football in Greece. Greece's main home stadiums are located in the capital-city Athens at the Olympic Stadium in Maroussi and in the port of Piraeus at the Karaiskakis Stadium. Greece is one of only ten national teams to have been crowned UEFA European Champions.

Greece made their first appearance in a major tournament at UEFA Euro 1980 and although they did not make it through the group stage, their qualification to the then eight-team tournament gave them a position in the top eight European football nations that year. Greece did not qualify for another major tournament until the 1994 FIFA World Cup and after an undefeated qualifying campaign, they produced a poor performance in the final tournament, losing all three group matches without scoring.

UEFA Euro 2004 marked a high point in Greece's football history when they were crowned European champions in only their second participation in the tournament. Dismissed as rank outsiders before the tournament, the team defeated some of the favourites in the competition including defending European champions France and hosts Portugal. During the tournament, Greece defeated the hosts in both the opening game of the tournament and again in the final. Their triumph earned them a place in the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup.

In the decade after the 2004 victory, Greece qualified for the final tournaments of all but one major competitions entered, reaching the quarter-finals at the UEFA Euro 2012 and the round of 16 at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. During that period, they occupied a place in the top 20 of the FIFA World Rankings for all but four months, and reached an all-time high of eighth in the world from April to June 2008, as well as in October 2011.

History of the Portugal national football team

The history of the Portugal national football team dates back to its first match on 18 December 1921. The Portuguese Football Federation was formed in 1914 with the name União Portuguesa de Futebol, but due to World War I, the team didn't play its first international match until 1921. The Portugal national football team has played in the FIFA World Cup, where their best finish was third, the Euros, which they've won, and other tournaments throughout its history.

Jim Proudfoot

Jim Proudfoot (born 16 December 1972) is an English football commentator, who has worked on national radio and television since the late 1990s.

Jimmy Jump

Jaume Marquet i Cot (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈʒawmə məɾˈkɛt i kɔt]), more popularly known as Jimmy Jump, born on 14 March 1976, is a streaker from Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain, known for interfering in several major entertainment and sporting events.

July 4

July 4 is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. 180 days remain until the end of the year. The Aphelion, the point in the year when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, occurs around this date.

List of European stadiums by capacity

Greece Vs Portugal Euro 2004

This is a list of the largest European stadiums. Stadiums with a capacity of 25,000 or more are included. The list includes stadiums in Europe and in countries that normally take part in European sporting competitions.

They are ordered by their audience capacity. The capacity figures are for each stadium's permanent total capacity, including seating and any official standing areas. The capacity does include movable seating - used by multi-purpose stadiums to regularly convert the stadium for different sports, and retractable seating for safe standing, but excludes any temporary seating or standing, such as for concerts. Stadiums are sorted in the list based on the largest of these capacities.

Rock Werchter

Rock Werchter is an annual music festival held in the village of Werchter, near Leuven, since 1976 and is a large sized annual rock music festival. The 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012 and 2014 festivals received the Arthur award for best festival in the world at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC). It can host 88,000 guests daily, of which 67,500 combine all four days, to add up to a total maximum of 149,500 different attendees.The festival started in 1974 as a one-day event with performances from Banzai and Kandahar, but over the years it has evolved to become one of Belgium's largest music festivals. Originally it was a double-festival, called 'Torhout-Werchter', with two festival areas at different sites in Belgium: one in Werchter and one in Torhout. In 1999, the festival dropped the Torhout site and since then has taken place only in Werchter. Since 2003 Werchter has been a 4-day festival, as it was sold by owner Herman Schueremans to American organizers Live Nation. Schueremans however remains the main organizer of the event. The festival is organized every first weekend of the summer vacation in Belgium (last weekend of June or the first of July).

In recent years, there has been controversy about rising ticket prices. Because of this, Schueremans was heckled during an appearance on HUMO's Pop Poll, a Belgian alternative award show. At €200 for four days

(€18 extra to include camping or €25 for xl-camping) in 2012, it was still considered a relatively inexpensive music festival.The camping sites officially open at 8am on the first day of the festival, but because of guests arriving early and camping on the street, the organizers have traditionally been forced to open the camping sites early - sometimes more than 24 hours. The campsites are located along the three main entrance roads into Werchter (from Haacht, Aarschot and Leuven), most of them within 1 kilometer of the festival site, but some located as far as 3 kilometers away. In 2011, for the first time, XL camping tickets are available, allowing festival goers to arrive and camp from 4pm on the Wednesday before the festival.Until the 1990s the festival attracted mostly Flemish festivalgoers, but in recent years it has become more and more international with an especially large influx of Dutch, French, Walloon and British visitors, with notable Australian, South African and other contingents. Belgians alternatively go to the Pukkelpop and Dour festivals.

Sport in Greece

Greece has risen to prominence in a number of sporting areas in recent decades. Football in particular has seen a rapid transformation, with the Greek national football team winning the 2004 UEFA European Football Championship. Many Greek athletes have also achieved significant success and have won world and olympic titles in numerous sports during the years, such as basketball, wrestling, water polo, athletics, weightlifting, with many of them becoming international stars inside their sports. The successful organisation of the Athens 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games led also to the further development of many sports and has led to the creation of many world class sport venues all over Greece and especially in Athens. Greek athletes have won a total 146 medals for Greece in 15 different Olympic sports at the Summer Olympic Games, including the Intercalated Games, an achievement which makes Greece one of the top nations globally, in the world's rankings of medals per capital.

Theodoros Zagorakis

Theodoros 'Theo' Zagorakis (Greek: Θεόδωρος Ζαγοράκης; born 27 October 1971) is a Greek politician and former footballer who played as a midfielder. He was the captain of the Greece national team that won UEFA Euro 2004, and was also president of PAOK FC. He was elected as a Greek MEP at the May 2014 European Parliament election.

Stages	Group stage Final
General information
Official symbols	Roteiro(ball) Kinas(mascot) UEFA Euro 2004(video game) 'Força' (song) Vive O 2004!(album)

Champions
Runners-up
Eliminated in the semi-finals
Eliminated in the quarter-finals
Eliminated in the group stage	Group A Group B Group C Group D

Tournaments
Qualifying
Finals	2004
Squads
Bids	1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000
Tournament statistics	1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988
Broadcasting rights	1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996
Records and lists
Miscellaneous

UEFA European Championship Finals	2004
UEFA Nations League Final
Other matches	Portugal 1–0 Netherlands (2006)

General topics
Venues	Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium (until 1982) Olympic Stadium (since 1982) Karaiskakis Stadium (since 2004)
Players	Other footballers
FIFA World Cup tournaments
UEFA Euro tournaments
Other tournaments
Matches	UEFA Euro 2004 Final Greece 0–1 Faroe Islands (2014) Faroe Islands 2–1 Greece (2015)
Rivalries
Other HFF teams

Languages

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