Econintersect: The quarter-final World Cup qualifying match today (22 June 
2012) is one that will be considered the most historical event ever played on a pitch. Not only because of the participants in the game but because of the way that the game ended. When it appeared the last second heroics were to be the highlight of the day, the post-game appeals took everything to an entirely new and unprecedented level. To understand the incredible story of this historic event you must watch the short video highlights (less than 4 minutes) of the match following the Read more skip.
Have you got the summary of the game digested?
Now comes the really interesting part of the story. Before the Greek players finished celebrating their victory, the head of the German Football Association filed an official protest. The claim was that Germany had actually won the match because the Greeks had scored an own goal.
Check back to the video. Sure enough the Greeks took the ball back into their end of the field and served the ball into their own goal. The score rightly belonged to Germany and the FIFA game committee reversed the final score to 1-0 Germany.
But there is even more!!!!
Within minutes of the outcome reversal ruling, the Hellenic Football Federation Greece filed its own appeal directly to FIFA headquarters. The Greek appeal was that the own goal ruling was clearly an error. Although the ball was placed in the goal defended by the Greek goalie, the teams had actually changed ends of the field at halftime; the fact that the two teams were otherwise occupied and did not reposition their players did not change the fact that the goal was scored on the goal that was Germany’s to defend.
The FIFA headquarters decision? The Greek appeal was upheld and the original score was reinstated: Greece 1, Germany 0.
And that is the story of the most historic football (soccer) match in history.
Editor’s note: In the actual game Germany dominated in most statistical categories and eliminated Greece by the score of 4-2.
Jillian Friesen and John Lounsbury
Sources:
- None could be found
