Charisteas is back in the national team
Euro-2004 winner Angelos Charisteas is returning to the national team, as Greece coach Fernando Santos has included the Panetolikos striker in the squad for the all-important Euro-2012 qualifiers with Croatia and Georgia of this month.
Charisteas returned to the Greek league after many years in the Netherlands, Germany and France, and has already scored twice for the newly-promoted Agrinio club in the Super League.
He is joining Eintracht Frankfurt striker Fanis Gekas who is also returning to the national team as the latter bids to pip Croatia to the top spot of the group that leads to the Euro 2012 finals in Poland and Ukraine.
The invitations to Charisteas and Gekas mean there is no place for Atromitos’s Costas Mitroglou, who has also been in hot form this season.
The squad that will be at Santos’s disposal for the home match with the Croats on October 7 and the away one at Georgia four days later includes the following players:
Goalkeepers: Alexandros Tzorvas (Palermo), Dionysis Chiotis (APOEL).
Defenders: Vassilis Torosidis, Avraam Papadopoulos (both Olympiakos Piraeus), Loukas Vintra, Nikos Spyropoulos (both Panathinaikos), Yiannis Zaradoukas (Olympiakos Volou), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Werder Bremen), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (Schalke).
Midfielders: Costas Katsouranis, Giorgos Karagounis (both Panathinaikos), Alexandros Tziolis (Santander), Giorgos Fotakis (PAOK), Grigoris Makos (AEK), Panayiotis Kone (Bologna), Thanos Petsos (Kaiserslautern).
Forwards: Dimitris Salpingidis, Stefanos Athanasiadis (both PAOK), Angelos Charisteas (Panetolikos), Fanis Gekas (Eintracht), Giorgos Samaras (Celtic).
