Tens of thousands of frenetic fans streamed to Athens airport and the Greek capital’s centre on Monday to welcome surprise European champions Greece home from their victorious Euro 2004 tournament in Portugal.
Hundreds of airport employees and about 1 500 fans broke out in ecstatic cheers when the team’s flight from Lisbon touched down in Athens airport at about 4.15pm GMT.
The plane was immediately saluted by two fire engines that shot streams of water into the air, forming an arch under which the plane crossed before docking.
Another 35 000 people filled the Panathinaikon stadium in the centre of Athens, which was bursting at the seams an hour before the team’s official comeback celebration. Huge crowds gathered around the stadium, haphazardously trying to force their way in.
The ceremony, scheduled for 5.30pm, had still not started by 6.15pm GMT as the bus carrying the team was inching its way forward through thick, enthusiastic crowds along the 35km trip from the airport.
Scenes of folly unfolded along the team’s triumphal march to the city centre as viewers on the side, and sometimes on the middle of the road, cheered and waved flags.
A huge convoy of honking cars and motorbikes trailed the bus.
Most nationwide television channels tuned in with live broadcasts.
Thousands of fans arrived at the Panathinaikon stadium hours before the team’s arrival. Under the boiling Athens sun, huge video screens fired fans’ enthusiasm, showing the goals scored by the team during the tournament.
”Greek team, great team,” the crowd sung in unison, waving Greek flags, their faces painted in the national colours.
At the airport supporters, mostly young men and women draped in Greek flags beat drums and sang the national anthem.
”On such a day, you leave everything aside and join in the celebrations. It’s a great day, full of glory. We still can’t believe it, it’s a dream come true,” said one fan, Joseph Brouzos.
”We’re the best, get us Brazil!” they chanted.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Athens mayor Dora Bakoyiannis, chief Olympics organiser Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki and Greece’s church leader Archbishop Christodoulos joined the celebrations in the stadium.
”Millions of Greeks in every corner of the world share today an unspeakable happiness. Greece is on the lips of the entire world … I am sure that this great joy will peak in the Olympics,” Karamanlis said.
”This is the biggest and best message for the Olympic Games: that Athens is here, everything is wonderful, we filled this stadium, and another 100 000 are outside,” Bakoyiannis said.
Police stopped traffic and banned parking in the roads adjacent to the venue — an imposing white-marble stadium in which the first modern Olympics took place in 1896.
Street vendors were selling Greek flags and white T-shirts with the national emblem as early as Monday morning on the streets of the capital. ”For the Panathinaikon stadium,” they were screaming to bypassers.
The Greek press urged readers to drop everything to attend the celebration. An estimated four million people, out of a population of 11-million, poured onto the streets throughout the nation after Sunday’s win.
And Defence Minister Spilios Spiliotopoulos warned that the welcome would be worthy of those bestowed on Greece’s ancient heroes.
When ancient Greeks welcomed their Olympic champions home they symbolically tore down part of their city walls. With heroes such as these among their ranks, no walls were needed to defend them, they said.
”Today we welcome the national team and in our thoughts, we’ll tear down our city’s walls … they deserve it,” Spiliotopoulos said. — Sapa-AFP