Rehhagel extends contract with Greece until 2010
(updates with quotes, details, background)
By Karolos Grohmann
ATHENS, March 29 (Reuters) - Greece coach Otto Rehhagel on Saturday
extended
his contract with the European champions until the 2010 World Cup, the
country's Football Association president Vassilis Gagatsis told re****ters.
"It was a brief meeting and very easy because Mr Rehhagel wanted to stay
on," Gagatsis told re****ters after the deal was struck. "He wants to
finish
his career in Greece."
Rehhagel took over unfancied Greece in 2001 and led the team to a stunning
Euro 2004 triumph in ****tugal. They have also qualified for this year's
European champion****ps in Austria and Switzerland starting in June.
Rehhagel, by far the most successful and longest-serving Greece coach, had
said for weeks he would have to look at the offer very carefully.
"I am an idealist but also at the same time a realist," he said earlier
this
week regarding the contract negotiations.
Rehhagel's first match was a 5-1 drubbing by Finland in 2001, instantly
raising alarm bells among the fickle Greek fans who assumed the former
Bundesliga coach, then in his early 60s, would just wind down his career
before retiring.
But he proved his critics wrong with a spectacular qualification to the
2004
tournament and an even more stunning performance that saw Greece lift the
trophy in one of the biggest upsets in the history of the s****t.
Greece then stuttered when they failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup
but
Rehhagel's team was among the first countries to seal qualification for
this
year's Euro tournament.
"The FA announces that the contract has been extended until the summer of
2010 after an agreement between the two sides," the FA said in a statement
on Saturday.
Rehhagel has achieved cult status in Greece and is known by his nickname
'King Otto' following the Euro 2004 triumph. But his insistence on picking
certain players and leaving others out of the squad for years has often
enraged media and fans.
Rehhagel has 43 wins, 16 draws and 19 defeats since taking over the
national
team, the best record of any Greece coach, the FA said on its Web site
(www.epo.gr). (Re****ting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ken Ferris)
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