Does history repeat itself?

Never one to keep up with news stories as they come up, I only recently found out about the draw for the qualifying groups of Euro 2008. That's the one England didn't qualify for.

Reigning champions Greece (42 months after the fact, it still feels wrong to read/write this) have been drawn with Spain, Russia and Sweden. Definitely not an easy group to qualify from, as all four teams are at about the same level of quality.

What's interesting to note, however, is that this is almost the same group as the one Greece was in the Euro 2004 tournament, from which they qualified and went on to win the championship, with the exception of Sweden which has replaced 04's Portugal. And Portugal is the better team, not to mention that they were the hosts that year.

I'm not saying that things will happen the same way, but the games Lady Luck plays are funny sometimes. Moreover, Greece generally tends to do well in a group when either Russia or the former USSR is there too. Is this mere coincidence? Probably, but who cares, little trivia like this make sports more fun to watch.

For the record, in 2004 Greece defeated Portugal 2-1, had a 1-1 draw against Spain and lost to Russia 1-2 in the last group game. It was the only game we lost, and it almost was enough to miss out on qualifying from the group. Should be really interesting to see the rematch.

The first game against Sveden will take place on June 10, so still a while to go. Let's see what happens.