Olympic Qualifiers 2016

[Von Bismarck]

As of now, Gobert - Batum - Mahinmi are 100% not playing the qualifiers and I've also read and heard Fournier won't be playing.

Without these 4, France are no more favorites against Canada. Yeah, they still have quality players such as De Colo, Diaw, Parker, Ajinca, Heurtel etc. but it's 50-50 now to be honest.

[UcanUwill]

As of now, Gobert - Batum - Mahinmi are 100% not playing the qualifiers and I've also read and heard Fournier won't be playing.

Without these 4, France are no more favorites against Canada. Yeah, they still have quality players such as De Colo, Diaw, Parker, Ajinca, Heurtel etc. but it's 50-50 now to be honest.

I would still put my money on France tho.

[mojo13]

I read De Colo is questionable as well. He may be chasing an NBA contract.

Canada I am sure will be without Nicholson, Powell, Sacre and Jamal Murray and maybe more. Kelly Olynyk is injured and questionable as well.

[Kineto]

For France, i guess that the starting 5 will be : Parker, De Colo, Gelabale, Diaw, Lauvergne

with some of Heurtel, Beaubois, Diot, Causeur, Kahudi, Moerman, Tillie, Pietrus, Ajinca and Jaiteh on the bench.

It's still pretty solid for me. (And all this players are accustomed to fiba rules, which is important in a short tournament like the TQO)

[Mirotic12]

It looks like almost all of Greece's leaders and main players won't play.

Vassilis Spanoulis, Nikos Zisis, Georgios Printezis are all out, and Ioannis Bourousis has said he will not play if he gets an NBA contract, which he is seeking.

Giannis Antetokounmpo says he will only play if the Bucks give permission, and evidently, as of yet they have not. But he claims he keeps begging them to let him play.

Also, Nikos Pappas, who would be a likely guy in Greece's team, since Spanoulis and Zisis are not playing, said recently he wants to switch from Greece's national team and play with Cyprus instead. So that would be another guy not playing apparently.

Greece's 5 best players overall are Zisis and Spanoulis (guards), G. Antetokounmpo and Printezis (forwards), and Ioannis Bourousis (center). And they are also each Greece's best player individually at each one of the 5 positions that they play at. And it looks like all 5 of them might not play.

[Prez]

Printezis, Bourousis, Zisis all being out are major blows. Spanoulis is trash though, his awful defense and chucking cost Greece against Spain last summer. Addition by subtraction there. But losing all those other guys will really hurt.

[Mirotic12]

Printezis, Bourousis, Zisis all being out are major blows. Spanoulis is trash though, his awful defense and chucking cost Greece against Spain last summer. Addition by subtraction there. But losing all those other guys will really hurt.

So according to you, Greece lost last year because of Spanoulis and Giannis had nothing to do with it....And Greece will now lose again, with Giannis this summer and no Spanoulis in the team. Because other players are out....

And Greece lost in 2014 with Giannis playing and no Spanoulis playing because why?

You sure have a lot of excuses, even pre ready made excuses lined up for Giannis to explain away failures with his national team. Amazing how Spanoulis is to blame for Greece losing, even when he was not on the team, for example 2014 World Cup where Giannis was definitely playing.

If Giannis was such a great player, he would lead Greece to qualify and win a medal at the Olympics, without needing Bourousis, Printezis, and Zisis. Evidently, he's not such a great player as you claim he is though, and apparently you actually do realize that. Otherwise, you would not be making excuses ahead of time for if Greece loses, and blaming losses of Greece on other players, with claiming "Greece's best player" has no blame or fault in failures.

It's strange, because the best player on the team is always supposed to take the blame when they lose. But you are saying Spanoulis is the one to blame, yet you are also saying at the same time that Giannis is also the best player of Greece. Which one is it? It can't be both.

Either Giannis is Greece's best player (as you claim he is), and he thus takes the responsibility for team losses (according to you he has no responsibility in Greek teams losing 3 summers in a row when he was on them), or he is not Greece's best player. You are shifting the blame and making excuses.

The so-called "best Greek player" has played in Greek teams the last 3 summers, and won nothing, and not even gotten a bronze medal even once. No objective person would claim he has no fault and no blame in that, because he clearly does. And don't try to blame Spanoulis, when he was only on one of those three Greek teams Giannis was on that won nothing and failed to even get a bronze medal. 2 of those 3 teams had no Spanoulis on them at all, as he was not even playing in those teams.

[Prez]

Printezis, Bourousis, Zisis all being out are major blows. Spanoulis is trash though, his awful defense and chucking cost Greece against Spain last summer. Addition by subtraction there. But losing all those other guys will really hurt.

So according to you Greece lost last year because of Spanoulis and Giannis had nothing to do with it....And Greece will now lose again, with Giannis this summer and no Spanoulis in the team. Because other players are out....

And Greece lost in 2014 with Giannis playing and no Spanoulis playing because why?

You sure have a lot of excuses, even pre ready made excuses lined up for Giannis to explain away failures with his national team. Amazing how Spanoulis is to blame for Greece losing, even when he was not on the team, for example 2014 World Cup where Giannis was definitely playing.

If Giannis was such a great player, he would lead Greece to qualify and win a medal at the Olympics, without needing Bourousis, Printezis, and Zisis. Evidently, he's not such a great player as you claim he is though, and apparently you actually do realize that. Otherwise, you would not be making excuses ahead of time for if Greece loses, and blaming losses of Greece on other players, with claiming "Greece's best player" has no blame or fault in failures.

It's strange, because the best player on the team is always supposed to take the blame when they lose. But you are saying Spanoulis is the one to blame, yet you are also saying at the same time that Giannis is also the best player of Greece. Which one is it? It can't be both.

Either Giannis is Greece's best player (as you claim he is), and he thus takes the responsibility for team losses (according to you he has no responsibility in Greek teams losing 3 summers in a row when he was on them), or he is not Greece's best player. You are shifting the blame and making excuses.

The so-called "best Greek player" has played in Greek teams the last 3 summers, and won nothing, and not even gotten a bronze medal even once. No objective person would claim he has no fault and no blame in that, because he clearly does. And don't try to blame Spanoulis, when he was only on one of those three Greek teams Giannis was on that won nothing and failed to even get a bronze medal. 2 of those 3 teams had no Spanoulis on them at all, as he was not even playing in those teams.

Giannis is substantially better than Spanoulis, it's not even remotely close right now. Spanoulis is a no defense chucker while Giannis is a budding star in the best basketball league in the world. Giannis is the face of Greek basketball. It's best to accept it.

And being the best player on the team and being the one to take the blame are totally different things on the Greek NT considering they embrace an absurd vet favoring mentality in which thoroughly mediocre players like Spanoulis get preferential treatment over vastly superior talents like Giannis. Example being Greece vs Spain last summer when Giannis was dominating defensively and rebounding-wise and was putting in a very strong effort offensively but didn't get the ball even half as much as he should have offensively because Spanoulis took it upon himself to chuck them out of the game while, again, playing no defense.

[Von Bismarck]

Giannis will never be as important as Spanoulis or for that matter Diamantidis and even Papaloukas to Greek national team performances. It's very simple, Giannis can't and won't be allowed to play PG under FIBA rules cause he'd have 10+ turnovers every game cause of travelling. And because of that, he's also very limited when he plays the PF position.

He will be good, certainly, but he will never have impact of those mentioned above.

As for Spanoulis. He was a killer in his prime, he still is minus the lack of stamina cause he got older.

And dude, European basketball doesn't work that way. There are many national teams in Europe where Euroleague guys have more impact than (good) NBA players.

[Mirotic12]

Giannis will never be as important as Spanoulis or for that matter Diamantidis and even Papaloukas to Greek national team performances. It's very simple, Giannis can't and won't be allowed to play PG under FIBA rules cause he'd have 10+ turnovers every game cause of travelling. And because of that, he's also very limited when he plays the PF position.

He will be good, certainly, but he will never have impact of those mentioned above.

As for Spanoulis. He was a killer in his prime, he still is minus the lack of stamina cause he got older.

And dude, European basketball doesn't work that way. There are many national teams in Europe where Euroleague guys have more impact than (good) NBA players.

In the Bucks forum, they had a EuroBasket 2015 thread, and Milbuck was asking people what happened in the tournament, because he said he could not watch the games, because he was at work when they happened.

Giannis isn't going to get 20-30 shots a game with Greece's national team. He won't get it with Spanoulis playing, he won't get it without Spanoulis playing. But it seems like Giannis has some die hard NBA fans that believed that is how big European national teams work.

Any NBA starting player will automatically become the Jordan of that team and Europe and FIBA or whatever I guess is how they view it. They don't know FIBA basketball, so they don't understand exactly what you said Von Bismarc. Giannis isn't goint to go from averaging 8-10 points a game with Greece the last 2 summers, to being the Jordan of FIBA, because "that Spanoulis scrub is gone". And as I said, Spanoulis did not even play most of these times Giannis was on Greece's NT.

People that only follow the NBA, in a lot of cases, get all riled up when any NBA starter does not "totally dominate" FIBA basketball. They need to find some kind of excuses then when they don't. In this case, the excuse of "Spanoulis iced out Giannis to prevent him from being the man" was created. Even though anyone that actually watched Greece's games last summer could see Spanoulis passed the ball to Giannis more than any other player Greece had, and that Spanoulis created all kinds of wide open 3s, layups, and dunks for Giannis, with his passing and the defensive pressure he drew.

Something that Giannis won't be getting without Spanoulis on the team (at least all those spoon fed wide open layups and dunks Spanoulis gave him). Giannis might still get left open for 3s, since he's an inconsistent 3 point shooter.

People that actually watched Greece's national team play last summer, would have seen that the only player on Greece's national team that was not really passing the ball to Giannis was Kostas Sloukas. The reason for that is Greece uses him to do a lot of play making, but he's much more of a scorer than a play maker. I don't think he intentionally did not pass to Giannis, that's just the kind of payer he is. A score first combo guard, that can play make, but looks to shoot first. So even in the case of the one Greek player that was not passing to Giannis enough, it was not intentional.

No mention of that from Milbuck though. Instead it is claimed Spanoulis would not pass the ball to Giannis, despite that he actually passed it to Giannis more than anyone else on the team.

As for this claim Greece only favors veteran players, and won't play young players. That's totally false and untrue. Greece used guys like Fotsis, Schortsanitis, Spanoulis, Vasilopoulos, Bourousis, and Zisis over veteran players when they were young. The same with guys like Papanikoloau and Sloukas. That's just in recent years.

And Greece's coach, Katsikaris, gave tons of chances to Giannis the last 2 years, especially last summer. After Giannis made several mistakes at the end of the Spain versus Greece game (bad shot selection, turnovers trying to go one against five, turnovers running the whole court by himself, bad fouls, losing his control, etc.)....

Katsiakaris put Giannis on the bench at the end of the 4th quarter to cool him off, let him get his composure, and get himself under control. He then put Giannis back in the game, before it ended. If Greece had some kind of built in system where veteran players take precedence over any young player, then Giannis would have stayed on the bench to finish that game.

In the next game, after the Spain against Greece game, in the Olympics qualification game against Belgium, which was a hugely important game, because it was to qualify for the last Olympics places...

Giannis started the game (again, that would not have happened if Greece had some kind of imaginary rule against using young players, after how Giannis lost his composure and made mistakes in crunch time against Spain), and with Giannis starting the game, he played really, really bad against Belgium (Greece's worst player probably in the game), and Belgium got a big lead at half time.

Katsikaris changed the game plan at halftime, and based the team's offense on Bourousis and Spanoulis, and Greece made a big comeback and won the game, and got the Olympics qualification place. At the 4th quarter, Katsikaris put Giannis back in the game, again giving him another chance. That would be 3 chances in a row, despite him playing bad. If Greece had something against using young players, and vets always take precedence, then Katsikaris would have kept Giannis benched in the 2nd half of the game against Belgium.

If Giannis does not average 30 a game for Greece this summer, we will probably see something posted here like, "Calathes iced out Giannis and would not pass to him", and "Greece only uses vet players", even though Giannis has been playing pro basketball for 4 years now, with 3 of them being as a starter in the NBA, which would make him an actual "veteran" player.

[Von Bismarck]

I agree completely.

And yeah, it seems people who follow only NBA don't get it, at least most of them.

By the way, who's not playing for Greece this summer in qualifying tournament in Turin besides these 3?

Spanoulis
Zisis
Printezis

What about Giannis and Bourousis?

[Mirotic12]

I agree completely.

And yeah, it seems people who follow only NBA don't get it, at least most of them.

By the way, who's not playing for Greece this summer in qualifying tournament in Turin besides these 3?

Spanoulis
Zisis
Printezis

What about Giannis and Bourousis?

Evidently Bourousis is playing. Although he said several times he was going to try to get an NBA contract, and that if he did, he would not play during the summer, and instead would workout in the USA. So maybe the qualification tournament is too early to effect that.

Antetokounmpo was blocked by the Bucks from playing. Greece registered him anyway, but the Bucks told him no. The report is the coach gave him 3 extra days to give one last attempt to convince the Bucks to let him play, and then if they still say no, he will be off the team.

Besides Printezis, Spanoulis, and Zisis, also Nikos Pappas is not playing. He should be in their team, but he has a long history of personal feuds with Greece's coach. They also dropped Kostas Kaimakoglou off their roster, for the first time in many years.

[Von Bismarck]

Thanks for the input. Well, absence of Printezis, Zisis, Spanoulis and Giannis is major blow for Greek chances in Turin. Italy and Croatia are almost with complete rosters (Hamilton-Tomic switch in Croatia's case and Italy is all good besides maybe Gallo who will maybe play but he's not healthy.)

[Prez]

Giannis will never be as important as Spanoulis or for that matter Diamantidis and even Papaloukas to Greek national team performances. It's very simple, Giannis can't and won't be allowed to play PG under FIBA rules cause he'd have 10+ turnovers every game cause of travelling. And because of that, he's also very limited when he plays the PF position.

He will be good, certainly, but he will never have impact of those mentioned above.

As for Spanoulis. He was a killer in his prime, he still is minus the lack of stamina cause he got older.

And dude, European basketball doesn't work that way. There are many national teams in Europe where Euroleague guys have more impact than (good) NBA players.

In the Bucks forum, they had a EuroBasket 2015 thread, and Milbuck was asking people what happened in the tournament, because he said he could not watch the games, because he was at work when they happened.

Giannis isn't going to get 20-30 shots a game with Greece's national team. He won't get it with Spanoulis playing, he won't get it without Spanoulis playing. But it seems like Giannis has some die hard NBA fans that believed that is how big European national teams work.

Any NBA starting player will automatically become the Jordan of that team and Europe and FIBA or whatever I guess is how they view it. They don't know FIBA basketball, so they don't understand exactly what you said Von Bismarc. Giannis isn't goint to go from averaging 8-10 points a game with Greece the last 2 summers, to being the Jordan of FIBA, because "that Spanoulis scrub is gone". And as I said, Spanoulis did not even play most of these times Giannis was on Greece's NT.

People that only follow the NBA, in a lot of cases, get all riled up when any NBA starter does not "totally dominate" FIBA basketball. They need to find some kind of excuses then when they don't. In this case, the excuse of "Spanoulis iced out Giannis to prevent him from being the man" was created. Even though anyone that actually watched Greece's games last summer could see Spanoulis passed the ball to Giannis more than any other player Greece had, and that Spanoulis created all kinds of wide open 3s, layups, and dunks for Giannis, with his passing and the defensive pressure he drew.

Something that Giannis won't be getting without Spanoulis on the team (at least all those spoon fed wide open layups and dunks Spanoulis gave him). Giannis might still get left open for 3s, since he's an inconsistent 3 point shooter.

People that actually watched Greece's national team play last summer, would have seen that the only player on Greece's national team that was not really passing the ball to Giannis was Kostas Sloukas. The reason for that is Greece uses him to do a lot of play making, but he's much more of a scorer than a play maker. I don't think he intentionally did not pass to Giannis, that's just the kind of payer he is. A score first combo guard, that can play make, but looks to shoot first. So even in the case of the one Greek player that was not passing to Giannis enough, it was not intentional.

No mention of that from Milbuck though. Instead it is claimed Spanoulis would not pass the ball to Giannis, despite that he actually passed it to Giannis more than anyone else on the team.

As for this claim Greece only favors veteran players, and won't play young players. That's totally false and untrue. Greece used guys like Fotsis, Schortsanitis, Spanoulis, Vasilopoulos, Bourousis, and Zisis over veteran players when they were young. The same with guys like Papanikoloau and Sloukas. That's just in recent years.

And Greece's coach, Katsikaris, gave tons of chances to Giannis the last 2 years, especially last summer. After Giannis made several mistakes at the end of the Spain versus Greece game (bad shot selection, turnovers trying to go one against five, turnovers running the whole court by himself, bad fouls, losing his control, etc.)....

Katsiakaris put Giannis on the bench at the end of the 4th quarter to cool him off, let him get his composure, and get himself under control. He then put Giannis back in the game, before it ended. If Greece had some kind of built in system where veteran players take precedence over any young player, then Giannis would have stayed on the bench to finish that game.

In the next game, after the Spain against Greece game, in the Olympics qualification game against Belgium, which was a hugely important game, because it was to qualify for the last Olympics places...

Giannis started the game (again, that would not have happened if Greece had some kind of imaginary rule against using young players, after how Giannis lost his composure and made mistakes in crunch time against Spain), and with Giannis starting the game, he played really, really bad against Belgium (Greece's worst player probably in the game), and Belgium got a big lead at half time.

Katsikaris changed the game plan at halftime, and based the team's offense on Bourousis and Spanoulis, and Greece made a big comeback and won the game, and got the Olympics qualification place. At the 4th quarter, Katsikaris put Giannis back in the game, again giving him another chance. That would be 3 chances in a row, despite him playing bad. If Greece had something against using young players, and vets always take precedence, then Katsikaris would have kept Giannis benched in the 2nd half of the game against Belgium.

If Giannis does not average 30 a game for Greece this summer, we will probably see something posted here like, "Calathes iced out Giannis and would not pass to him", and "Greece only uses vet players", even though Giannis has been playing pro basketball for 4 years now, with 3 of them being as a starter in the NBA, which would make him an actual "veteran" player.

I politely ask you to stop trolling and making things up about what I said. I watched Eurobasket and I'm sorry if it bothers you but Spanoulis legitimately was garbage against Spain and single handedly cost Greece with his awful defense and low IQ offense. Giannis was tearing it up defensively and on the boards and had it going offensively but was frozen out by Spanoulis. These are facts.

Giannis is better than Spanoulis ever was, and would have taken Spain out if it wasn't for Spanoulis desperately trying to assert himself despite not being nearly good enough to get them over the hump.

[VUK1]

Dumb question- has Greece ever contemplated a naturalised player like Spain/Croatia etc?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Mirotic12]

Dumb question- has Greece ever contemplated a naturalised player like Spain/Croatia etc?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

No. The country of Greece's laws prevent any naturalized citizen from playing with any of their senior national sports teams. Peja tried to play for Greece, and the laws of the country blocked him from doing so. So then he switched to Serbia's national team.

So it's not possible for any naturalized players to play for Greece.

[Prez]

Dumb question- has Greece ever contemplated a naturalised player like Spain/Croatia etc?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

No. The country of Greece's laws prevent any naturalized citizen from playing with any of their senior national sports teams. Peja tried to play for Greece, and the laws of the country blocked him from doing so. So then he switched to Serbia's national team.

So it's not possible for any naturalized players to play for Greece.

Peja couldn't play for the Greek team because he is Serbian. His parents were Serbian, he grew up ethnically Serbian, everything about him was Serbian. He is Serbian, moving to Greece when he was 16 to play ball in no way shape or form makes him Greek.

[Dr Music]

Dumb question- has Greece ever contemplated a naturalised player like Spain/Croatia etc?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

No. The country of Greece's laws prevent any naturalized citizen from playing with any of their senior national sports teams. Peja tried to play for Greece, and the laws of the country blocked him from doing so. So then he switched to Serbia's national team.

So it's not possible for any naturalized players to play for Greece.

Not exactly true. In the 70's you had Steve Young (Yiantzoglou), Kastrinakis, Diakoulas and Mellini all US born who played with Olympiakos and most of them with the NT. And many more including Gallis and just recently Koufos and Calathes.

[mojo13]

Dumb question- has Greece ever contemplated a naturalised player like Spain/Croatia etc?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

No. The country of Greece's laws prevent any naturalized citizen from playing with any of their senior national sports teams. Peja tried to play for Greece, and the laws of the country blocked him from doing so. So then he switched to Serbia's national team.

So it's not possible for any naturalized players to play for Greece.

Not exactly true. In the 70's you had Steve Young (Yiantzoglou), Kastrinakis, Diakoulas and Mellini all US born who played with Olympiakos and most of them with the NT. And many more including Gallis and just recently Koufos and Calathes.

Anyone with a grandparent (or parent) merely born in Greece qualifies for Greek citizenship. Thus the high amount of American born and raised players who have historically played for the Greek national team. They are not considered "naturalized" players (only one "naturalized" player allowed per national team roster) - they are considered natural citizens. Even if they have never set foot in Greece they can become citizens. Different countries may have different rules. Some countries are similarly loose like this, where some require residency and language hurdles. Some say no to just grandparent lineage but allow it for parental lineage. For example U.S. citizenship does not pass directly from a grandparent to a grandchild and even if the parent has U.S. citizenship , there are residency requirements for citizenship to pass to a child. For a child born outside the US to gain citizenship if both parents are U.S. citizens at the time of birth, then at least one parent must have lived in the U.S. prior to the birth. If only one parent is a U.S. citizen at the time of birth that parent must have been physically present in the U.S. at least five years at some time in their life prior to the birth, of which at least two years were after his or her 14th birthday. With Greece none of this matter. If you can show you had a grandparent born Greece then you can get Greek citizen ship. Nothing else required.

[Mirotic12]

Peja couldn't play for the Greek team because he is Serbian. His parents were Serbian, he grew up ethnically Serbian, everything about him was Serbian. He is Serbian, moving to Greece when he was 16 to play ball in no way shape or form makes him Greek.

Peja played with Greece's junior national teams, and he was on Greece's team at the Albert Schweitzer tournament (world Under-18 championship). He was in the training of their senior team also. It was not until the country's laws blocked him from playing for the senior team in an official tournament (since he was naturalized), that he switched to Serbia's national team.

So your point about him being Serbian is completely irrelevant to the question. Can naturalized players play for Greece? The answer being no, since Peja is a naturalized Greek player, played in their youth team, trained with their senior team, then had to switch to Serbia's national team.

He was going to play in Greece's senior team if he was allowed to, as he has stated numerous times. So the point is that no, naturalized players cannot play for Greece, as the example of Peja proves that. Him being Serbian or not, is not even pertinent to that issue, which was the question being asked.

Not exactly true. In the 70's you had Steve Young (Yiantzoglou), Kastrinakis, Diakoulas and Mellini all US born who played with Olympiakos and most of them with the NT. And many more including Gallis and just recently Koufos and Calathes.

Not a single one of those players mentioned was a naturalized player. Every single one of them was a natural born Greek citizen, not a naturalized citizen. Again, Greece does not allow any naturalized players.

FIBA current rules clearly state that only one naturalized player can play on any national team (and it's never ever been more than 2 naturalized players allowed on a team at any time in history). The fact several of those players played in Greece's national team together, including both Koufos and Calathes just last summer, should be enough to explain that they are not naturalized players. If they were both naturalized players, FIBA itself would not allow them to both play for Greece. FIBA's own rules would not even allow it, if they were naturalized.

Again, not a single one of those players is naturalized.

Greece has had some naturalized players over the years, like:

Rasho Nesterovich
Peja Stojakovic
Marko Jaric

And so forth. None of their naturalized players was ever allowed to play with their national team.

Anyone with a grandparent (or parent) merely born in Greece qualifies for Greek citizenship. Thus the high amount of American born and raised players who have historically played for the Greek national team. They are not considered "naturalized" players (only one "naturalized" player allowed per national team roster) - they are considered natural citizens. Even if they have never set foot in Greece they can become citizens. Different countries may have different rules. Some countries are similarly loose like this, where some require residency and language hurdles. Some say no to just grandparent lineage but allow it for parental lineage. For example U.S. citizenship does not pass directly from a grandparent to a grandchild and even if the parent has U.S. citizenship , there are residency requirements for citizenship to pass to a child. For a child born outside the US to gain citizenship if both parents are U.S. citizens at the time of birth, then at least one parent must have lived in the U.S. prior to the birth. If only one parent is a U.S. citizen at the time of birth that parent must have been physically present in the U.S. at least five years at some time in their life prior to the birth, of which at least two years were after his or her 14th birthday. With Greece none of this matter. If you can show you had a grandparent born Greece then you can get Greek citizen ship. Nothing else required.

That's actually not true. You can't get Greek citizenship unless you have physically been inside the country's borders. Also, in the case of men, as being discussed here, you have to also serve in the Greek military. On top of that, in the case of the Greek national team, which is also what is being discussed here, you either have to already speak Greek, or you have to agree to learn it. As the Greek national team does its training and games in Greek, and not in English.

So it's actually not true that you can get Greek citizenship without ever being to Greece (you have to be there), it's not true that you simply have to have a grandparent from there (if you are male, as all these guys, you also have to serve in the Greek military), and it's also not true more so in the case of these guys (since they have to speak Greek).