Greece ended the fourth matchday of the Nations League with a 0-0 draw against Germany, a result that lifted the team to joint first place in Group A on eight points alongside the Netherlands, according to the Spanish outlet ABC. So far, no side has managed to defeat the Greeks.
The team is coached by the Serbian Ivan Jovanovic, and ABC describes the current period as an unexpected rebirth for Greek football, which has already begun to attract envy from elsewhere on the continent.
That rebirth followed more than twenty years of instability, dating back to Greece's European Championship victory over the host nation Portugal. ABC frames the turnaround as one born out of desperation and humiliation: after winning at Lisbon's Da Luz stadium, the Greeks assumed that once at the summit, nothing needed to be altered in order to stay there.
Greece's revival stands out at a moment when several major national teams — among them Germany, Italy, Brazil and Uruguay — are enduring dark spells, bruised by embarrassing results and pushed toward rebuilds that are proving very hard to carry out, ABC reports.