THE ANGEL OF GREECE

During the 2004 European Cup, an amazing thing happened. One of the away teams, Greece, won the cup. They beat Portugal, Spain, France and the Czech Republic and they were European champions. Many people called it a football fairytale.

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Angelos Charisteas. He was born on February 9, 1980, in Greece. Angelos was good at two things very much: sports and bouzoukis. When Angelos was 16, he started to play football for the local team. He was tall and a very good header. One day, a trainer from another team saw Angelos and made him an offer: “Would you like to play for our team?” “Of course!” said Angelos. It was a big step in his career. First, he played for the second team. He was the top scorer, so he soon played for the first team. In December 2004, he started to play for the Dutch team Ajax. But the dream came true when he played for the Greek team in the European Cup. Before the competition, the newspapers said: Greece did not win a game in the European tournament before. Greece doesn’t have any star players’. But during the match, Angelos was amazing. The newspapers called him the Angel of Greece.