Greece finish third at SOCCA World Cup
Greece lost to Russia in the semi-finals of the 2019 SOCCA World Cup, but the host nation recovered to subsequently defeat Moldova in the third place playoff in the evening.
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This year, the SOCCA World Cup - which sees teams consisting of six players compete against each other on a small pitch - was held in Rethymno, Crete. Two halves of 20 minutes were played in each match.
Yesterday, the Greek dream lived to fight another day following a thrilling 4-3 victory over England in the quarter-finals, but Russia won a tense semi-final 3-2 to send Greece down to the third place playoff. In that semi-final clash, Greece scored twice in the second half after initially falling 3-0 down in the first 20 minutes, but there wasn’t enough time to score the third.
Nevertheless, despite that setback, Greece managed to regroup and beat Moldova 2-1 in the game for third place. Once again, Dimitris Thanasai was the Greek hero, scoring the two goals to seal bronze. His winning goal was scored in stoppage time at the end of the second half.
Konstantinos Katsouranis, who won UEFA Euro 2004 with the Greek national team, was a member of the team at this competition.
Russia became champions with a nervy 3-2 win against Poland in the final.
The Greek team had previously defeated England (4-3), Croatia (2-0), Latvia (2-0) and Chile (4-2) at the tournament while drawing with Egypt (2-2) and Mexico (0-0).
