Greece proud to have gone down fighting

Greece know there was no disgrace in their 4-2 UEFA EURO 2012 quarter-final defeat against Germany, with Dimitris Salpingidis, Giorgos Samaras and Sokratis Papastathopoulos grateful for the support they received in Poland, and proud of the work that took them this far.

Dimitris Salpingidis, Greece forward
We fought as hard as we could. We were much better in the second half. We believed more in ourselves, and we managed to equalise. Unfortunately, these things happen in football. Germany scored a second goal, then naturally we pushed for another, and they scored again. The point is that we fought as hard as we could and we leave the tournament with our heads held high.

Everything has been really nice in Poland. We enjoyed every moment and the fact that we had to battle every day. We really loved it and we hope that our fans enjoyed it as well while they were watching our efforts. We have raised standards over the last ten years. Our next goal is to reach the World Cup finals in Brazil.

Giorgos Samaras, Greece forward
Germany are a very good team. We have managed to stand up to them, and we gave more than 100%. That is why we are proud to leave knowing that we did our best.

The Greek team have plenty of young players, including myself, as I am only 27. We still have a future in front of us. I am sure many other young players will join the team. A new campaign looking to Brazil starts in September, and I believe that everyone in this team, as well all Greeks, are hoping we will take part in those finals.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Greece defender
We definitely played against a great team today; we knew that from the very first moment. This is one of the best teams of the moment, and one of the best teams of the past five years. We did the best we could, and we scored two goals. Maybe we could have been more careful, but we put our soul into it, we did our best for Greece and for our people, and we really thank them for supporting us.

There is definitely a future for this team. The only thing we have to do is make a step forward each time we play in tournaments like this. We managed to be one of the eight best teams in Europe. That's a great achievement if you consider the Netherlands didn't even qualify, even though they are a very good team with players that are worth a lot of money. In my opinion, we did a great job, and we hope we will be even better in the future.