Greece’s male national team will start preparing for the European Championships (January 4 – 16) on February 8. Head coach Theodoros Vlachos called up 23 players.
All players who won silver at the World Championships in Fukuoka are on the extended roster.
They are joined by Angelos Vlachopoulos, who missed the Worlds in Fukuoka for personal reasons, and several young players. One of the youngsters comes from the USA. Vlachos invited Nikolaos Papanikolaou, who recently won the title in the College Championships of the USA (NCAA), playing for the University of California, Berkeley (California Bears). Papanikolau was picked as the MVP of the NCAA Championships for the third year in a row.
Greece will train together with Australia between December 8 and 14 and will play two friendly games against the „Aussie Sharks.“
The players called up to the preparations
Goalkeepers: Emmanouil Zerdevas (Olympiacos), Panagiotis Tzortzatos (Vouliagmeni), Konstantinos Limarakis (Panionios).
Field players: Ioannis Fountoulis, Konstantinos Genidounias, Dimitris Nikolaidis, Nikos Gkillas, Giorgios Dervisis, Alexandros Papanastasiou, Ioannis Alafragkis (all Olympiacos), Aristidis Chalyvopoulos, Efhstatios Kalogeropoulos, Nikos Papasifakis (all Vouliagmenis), Kostas Gkiouvetsis (Panionios), Emmanouil Solanakis, Nikos Gardikas (both Apollo Smyrnis), Nikos Mitrakis (Ydraikos), Vangelis Pouros (Glyfada), Angelos Vlachopoulos, Dimitris Skoumpakis (Novi Beograd), Stylianos Argyropoulos (Ferencvaros), Konstantinos Kakaris (Pro Recco), Nikolaos Papanikolaou (University of California, Berkeley).
Greece, one of three European teams that have qualified for the Olympic Games (along with Hungary and host France) will play against Hungary, Italy and Georgia in the group in Zagreb at the Europeans. The Greeks’ rivals in the group stage at the World Championships in Doha will be Brazil, China and France.
