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Greece and FC Porto made it a great year for underdogs. Never having won a game in a major championship, Greece overcame 100-1 odds to win the Euro 2004 title.

And 50-1 outsider Porto not Real Madrid or AC Milan won the Champions League. The surprises weren’t necessarily a great advertisement for the world’s most popular game. The grind of year-round soccer seemed to wear down the world’s biggest stars and weaken the most powerful national teams and clubs. Greece and Porto were tough to beat, rather than great entertainers. Off the pitch, the picture was even less uplifting.

Racist chants, corruption and match-fixing stained the game, while two stars received lengthy doping-related bans. A bomb threat in December forced the evacuation of Real Madrid’s 70,000-seat Santiago Bernebeu stadium, bringing a stark reminder of the threat of terrorism. Racism marred a so-called friendly in Spain, where fans bellowed monkey chants at England’s black players. Similar incidents occurred in England, Hungary and the Netherlands. Spain’s national coach, Luis Aragones, kept his job despite a racial slur about Arsenal’s French striker Thierry Henry. Former Man United manager Ron Atkinson quit as a TV commentator after making a derogatory comment about Marcel Desailly.

The Czech Republic and Portugal launched corruption investigations, and match-fixing marred soccer in South Africa. A bribery scandal surrounded one of the stadiums being built for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The English Premier League had two high-profile drug cases. Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand was suspended for eight months he missed Euro 2004 for failing to show up for a drug test. Chelsea’s Adrian Mutu was banned for seven months after testing positive for cocaine. Italy’s Francesco Totti and Senegalese World Cup striker El Hadji Diouf were each banned for three games for spitting in the face of opponents.

A European Champions League game was called off when referee Anders Frisk walked off at half time with blood streaming down his face, the target of an object thrown from the stands. In South America, fan violence caused the death of a 15-year-old boy in Colombia. There were some feel-good stories. Colombia’s Once Caldas made its first appearance in South America’s Copa Libertadores and beat Argentina’s Boca Juniors, a powerhouse club that won three of the previous four titles.

Without a home field and with the players terrified of returning to their war-torn country, Iraq reached the semifinal of the Olympic tournament alongside favorites Argentina and Italy. Playing top quality soccer, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal set an English record by going the entire 38-game Premier League season unbeaten. The Gunners stretched that record to 49 before United beat them 2-0 in October.

Apart from Wenger, the star coaches of 2004 were Jose Mourinho, Otto Rehhagel and Iraq’s Adnan Hamad. A year after guiding Porto to the UEFA Cup title, Mourinho led the Portuguese team to victory in the Champions League, beating AS Monaco 3-0 in the final. Mourinho moved to Chelsea and has the Blues on top of the Premier League helped by the spending power of multi-millionaire owner Roman Abramovich.

A 65-year-old German, Rehhagel had never experienced the success he achieved with the Greeks in Euro 2004. The Greeks were expected to be among the first teams eliminated. Instead, they beat the Portuguese in the opening game and again in the final in Lisbon to capture their first title. Hamad’s Iraq team, unable to play a single qualifying game at home because of the violence and lack of sports infrastructure, upset Portugal 4-2 and then beat Morocco and Australia in Athens. Iraq lost to Paraguay in the semifinals and to Italy in the bronze medal game but made many friends. Some big names flopped. Real Madrid’s team of “galacticos” appeared headed for triple success in the Champions League and Spanish competitions, but collapsed in the last few weeks of the season and won nothing.

Brazil won the Copa America and Argentina took the Olympic title, but there were few flashes of greatness. Several top name players retired from international soccer while continuing to play for their clubs: Francesco Toldo, Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desailly, Jaap Stam, Bixente Lizarazu, Zinedine Zidane, Pavel Nedved, Paul Scholes, Luis Figo, Rui Costa and Ronald de Boer. And there were plenty of coaching changes. Marco van Basten took over from Dick Advocaat in charge of the Dutch national team, and Juergen Klinsmann was a surprise replacement for Rudi Voeller in Germany. Marcelo Lippi took over from Giovanni Trapattoni in Italy, Aragones took the Spain job, and Berti Vogts quit after two barren years with Scotland.

Jacques Santini had already planned to leave the France job before the team meekly surrendered the European title. He took over at Tottenham but quit after five months, unhappy with the setup under new sporting director Frank Arnesen. Rafael Benitez led Valencia to the Spanish League title and UEFA Cup and then joined Santini and Mourinho in English soccer with a move to Liverpool. Liverpool and Manchester United were targets of takeover bids. While three consortiums chased Liverpool, United’s main suitor was Malcolm Glazer, owner of the 2003 NFL Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He raised his stake to 28.1 percent and voted out three board members. After being rushed to hospital in a critical condition, Diego Maradona spent 2 1/2 months in drug rehabilitation in Cuba. The game lost John Charles, a Welshman who starred at the 1958 World Cup and became a favorite at Juventus, and Brian Clough, who led Nottingham Forest to European Cup victories in 1979 and ‘80 and was known as “the best manager England never had.” ap

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