Otto mulls over king’s ransom

The focus now is not on Greece but Germany. To whom do they turn to lead the team in the World Cup of 2006?

Will it be the controversial "King Otto" Rehhagel of Greece? Have they, the German FA, the courage to invest their future in a man who is notoriously unpopular in his native Germany, even if today he is the number one man in Greece.

Rehhagel is acknowledged as one of the most successful coaches ever to work in the Bundesliga but has not won many friends along the way. He has been variously described to me by German contacts as a "control freak" and a "dictator" who is intolerant to the point of rudeness with anyone offering an alternative point of view.

UEFA yesterday unwittingly confirmed this very point when, in an official report from the technical committee, the director, Andy Roxburgh of Scotland, said: "Otto has fixed ideas and he has imposed them on his players. He came to a UEFA coaching course a few months ago and was very expressive.

"He said he wasn't going to change his style, hoped he would do well in the European tournament and you have to give every credit to him."

There is no arguing with Otto now. He won the tournament after all with a team that was unrated to the point where they were fractionally more respected than Latvia.

Rehhagel is not only unpopular with club directors from whom he refuses to tolerate interference. He walked out on Bayern Munich because Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness sought to discuss football matters with him.

Former German international Hans-Peter Briegel, who won a European Championship with Germany in 1982, left his home-town club Kaiserslautern when, as technical director, he found it impossible to work with Rehhagel as coach.

Greece will not want to consider the possibility of Rehhagel moving to fill the vacancy left in his native Germany by the retirement of Rudi Voller and the decision of Ottmar Hitzfeld not to accept the job because he wanted a break from football.

The Greek FA boosted the players' bonus fund to 2.3m when they reached the quarter-finals heaven knows what bonus they offered for the final. The Greek FA won approximately 16.56m for winning the tournament.

It can only be a matter of speculation what bonus Rehhagel himself received. And he will inevitably be offered an extension to his contract at much improved terms.

But if he has ambitions of leading Germany, then he will never have a more favourable set of circumstances, with Germany set to host the finals in two years.

Greece's midfield captain, Theodoros Zagorakis, was yesterday named player of the tournament by the UEFA Technical Committee. He was also named in this correspondent's team prior to Sunday's final. Zagorakis was nominated for a position in midfield alongside Figo, Maniche, Patrick Vieira and Pavel Nedved in my selection and that is a midfield combination I would defend in spite of the fact that the UEFA Technical Committee did not include Vieira in their All-Star Squad of 23.

He was one of three players in my selection who did not receive the support of the committee Spain's right-back Carlos Puyol and Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo were the others. And after the final I would have changed my mind about Ricardo.

His macho gesture in the quarter-final against England when he saved a penalty from Darius Vassell and then insisted on smashing home the crucial winning penalty himself was too big an influence on my choice.

His disastrous attempt to prevent Charisteas from scoring the decisive goal in the final following a corner proved that this argument was fatally flawed. Brave and aggressive he might be, but as a goalkeeper he does not compare to Italy's Buffon, Peter Cech of the Czech Republic and others.

I expressed an opinion before the final that Luiz Felipe Scolari was the most dynamic and influential coach in the tournament. Again the final showed that this evaluation was suspect.

Scolari's performance in the final was abysmal. He showed a total lack of decisiveness when it was obvious after 20 minutes that Greece's all-action defensive style was too much for Portugal. He delayed until after Greece scored to make the changes that were blatantly obvious.

This was all the more critical because Greece had beaten Portugal in the opening game on June 12 and Scolari showed he had learnt nothing positive from that experience.

That defeat caused him to make changes in the team full-back Ferreira, midfielder Rui Costa, defenders Fernando Couto, Rui Jorge and winger Simao were the big losers. They were replaced in subsequent matches by Miguel, Deco, Nuno Valente, Carvalho.

Against Greece, second-time round, Portugal repeatedly failed to penetrate the massed ranks of Greeks defenders because their only tactic was to try and dribble through them. Figo, Ronaldo and Deco repeatedly ran into brick walls, for Greece were too well organised and too athletic to be out-run.

Opinions differed hugely about the merits of Ronaldo's contribution. To me, he was a disappointment. He worked until he dropped but there never was a final product. And he missed the best chance of the game in the 74th minute.

Deco was another who failed to provide a final product and it was all too obvious they needed a player to orchestrate things in midfield, a player capable of infiltrating the first layers of defence with incisive passing Rui Costa was that man. He was kept too long in reserve.

Greece now looks forward to the Olympic Games and surely they will parade the Henri Delauney Cup in front of the massed audience at the opening ceremony.

If rumours are to believed the man they may charge with igniting the Olympic flame will be none other than that well-known Greek regent and philosopher, King Otto Rehhagelopolous.