Santos names Greek squad to face Ireland

Greece are in town for Wednesday night's friendly with Ireland at a half-empty Aviva Stadium, so that should mean it's time to get out some economic puns then?

The default for other websites would be to roll out a troika of puns regarding the euro, the bail out and the IMF but we are above all that at extratime.ie. Oh and we can confirm that Angela Merkel will not be the match day referee.

Is the Greece national team any good?

Well they are ranked 12th in the current FIFA world rankings but did they drop two ranking places this month.  They had a good European Championship where they qualified for second round out of Group A ahead of hosts Poland (who they drew with 1-1) and Russia (who they beat 1-0).  The Czech Republic beat Greece 2-1 to top the group. Greece were beaten 4-2 in the quarter final by our old friends Germany, a result that was a tad better than ours.

How are they doing so far in their qualification campaign for Brazil 2014?

They have started well and sit joint top of their group with Bosnia on 10 points from four games.  They started the campaign in September by winning 1-0 away in Slovakia and then drew 0-0 at home with Bosnia.  In last month’s qualifiers, they got two wins from two: beating Lithuania 2-0 at home and Latvia 2-1 away. 

Which Greek players should be familiar to us?

Those used to watching teams in green and white hoops will recognise a couple of their strikers.  Celtic striker Giorgas Samaras, not to be confused with Antonis Samaras Greece’s beleaguered Prime Minister, has scored eight goals in 62 appearances for his national team.

The Celtic striker will most likely have Dimitris Salpingidis alongside him up front, a player who has scored 10 goals from his 63 international caps.  He scored two goals in Tallaght Stadium for his club PAOK against Shamrock Rovers in the Europa League last November.  Salpingidis scored twice in recent Euros, once against Poland and another against Germany.  He scored the winner for Greece in last month’s 1-0 away Brazil 2014 qualifier over Slovakia

Any young up and coming players to keep an eye out for?

Twenty-year-old Kostas Fortounis is a highly regarded midfielder who plays his football in Germany with Kaiserslautern.  Defender Kyriakos Papadopoulos also plays in the Bundesliga where the 20 year old lines out with Schalke 04.  Panagiotis Tachtsidis is on the books with Roma.

Greek manager Fernando Santos named his squad last Friday, so who is in it?

Goalkeepers: Orestis Karnezis (Panathinaikos), Kostas Peristeridis (Panionisos);

Defenders: Kostas Manolas (Olympiakos), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (Schalke04), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Werder Bremen), Kostas Stafylidis (PAOK), Nikos Spyropoulos (Panathinaikos), Manolis, Vasilis Torosidis (Olympiakos), Loukas Vyntra (Panathinaikos);

Midfielders: Elini Dimoutsos (Atromitos), Kostas Fortounis (Kaiserslautern), Panagiotis Kone (Bologna), Giannis Maniatis (Olympiakos), Sotiris Ninis (Parma), Panagiotis Tachtsidis (Roma), Alexandros Tziolis (APOEL);

Forwards: Stefanos Athanasiadis (PAOK), Lazaros Christodoulopoulos (Panathinaikos), Kostas Mitroglou (Olympiakos), Cholempas, Dimitris Salpingidis (PAOK), Giorgos Samaras (Celtic).