Thousands of Fans Celebrate in Athens

ATHENS —  Greece defeated the Czech Republic, 1-0, in the semifinals of the European Championship on Thursday, igniting -- for the second time in a week -- a frenzy of horn-blowing, siren-wailing, blue-and-white flag-waving joy here and across this small nation.

Last Friday, the Greek soccer team, a perennial underachiever, defeated France, the 1998 World Cup champion and defending European champion, to advance to the final four of the 2004 European Championship in Portugal. That sent thousands of people into the streets, in Athens to Omonia Square, near City Hall, for a night of revelry.

The scene repeated itself late Thursday, carrying on well into Friday morning, when Traianos Dellas scored in overtime.

On an Athens street corner, Stephanos Nousgakis, 16, wearing a blue-and-white shirt with a “Hellas” logo and waving a blue-and-white Greek flag, said, “It’s like I’m in heaven.”

Greece has never before made it so far in a major championship. The Greeks did not qualify for the 2002 or 1998 World Cup. They made it to the 1994 World Cup in the United States, only to lose three straight games without scoring.

This time around, the team has been tooling across Portugal in a blue bus that has inscribed in white on the windows, “Ancient Greece had 12 Gods. Modern Greece has 11.”

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, head of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games organizing committee, who flew to Portugal to see Thursday’s game, said afterward in a telephone call: “We’re going for the finals! It’s fantastic!”

The winning goal came at 11:54 p.m. Athens time and capped more than two hours of fingernail-biting, chain-smoking worry from Greek fans.