Greece was utterly abysmal in their qualifying campaign for Euro 2016, winning only a single match and finishing behind both Finland and the Faroe Islands. For supporters of Greece, Ioannis “Giannis” Maniatis may have just provided their most spectacular moment in years with this belter of a goal from 65 yards out.
Greece were playing out a meaningless friendly against Australia in Melbourne Tuesday night when a moment of lightning in a bottle occured. Maniatis was playing in the defensive midfield role when he emerged from a tackle with the ball, 65 yards out. In his 40th appearance for Greece, Maniatis was still looking for his first goal.
With the keeper off of his line, Maniatis took this chance to open his account for the Ethniki. Not since Angelos Charisteas headed past Portugal’s Ricardo in the Euro 2004 final has a Greek victory been so emphatically captured.
Incredible long range effort from Giannis Maniatis!#AUSvGRE #Footballhttps://t.co/s1j7mI7TDo
— Luxbet (@luxbet) June 7, 2016
Australia coach Ange Postecoglou was quick to defend his keeper’s positioning on the goal.
“It wasn’t a horrible mistake — [Federici] was doing what he was supposed to be doing. That’s not his responsibility, it’s my responsibility because that’s how we want our goalkeeper to play.”
Postecoglou went on to say that “every now and then that will happen to us”. If that is indeed the case, forget the Copa America and European Championship, Australia returns to action on September 1st against Iraq. I, for one, cannot wait.
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