The Greece national football team (, ) represents Greece in men's international football matches and is controlled by the Hellenic Football Federation, the governing body for football in Greece. Greece play most of their home matches in Attica in Athens at the Olympic Stadium. Greece is one of only ten national teams to have been crowned UEFA European Champions. Greece had a small presence in international football. From the 1980s they have experienced the first taste of, but not a banquet, of football achievement. Their first appearance in a major tournaments was at UEFA Euro 1980. They never made it through the group stage. Their qualification to the then eight-teams tournaments gave them a position in the top eight European football nations that year. Greece did not qualify for another major tournament until the 1994 FIFA World Cup and after an undefeated qualifying campaign, they produced a poor performance in the finals tournaments, losing all three group matches without scoring. UEFA Euro 2004 marked the highest point in Greece's football history when they were crowned European Championship in only their second participation in the tournaments. Dismissed as rank outsiders before the tournaments, Greece defeated some of the favourites in the competition including defending European Championship France and hosts Portugal. During the tournaments, Greece defeated the hosts in both the opening game of the tournaments and again in the finals. Their triumph earned them a place in the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup. In the decade after the 2004 victory, Greece qualified for the finals tournaments of all but one major competitions entered, reaching the quarter-finals at the UEFA Euro 2012 and the round of 16 at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. During that period, they occupied a place in the top 20 of the FIFA World Rankings for all but four months, and reached an all-time high of eighth in the world from April to June 2008, as well as in October 2011. History First years On 12 April 1896, a Greek XI represented by Podilatikos Syllogos Athinon lost to a Denmark XI by either 9–0 or 15–0, at the Neo Phaliron Velodrome in Athens in a demonstration game during the 1896 Olympic Games. The first three editions of the Olympic football event (1900–06) had an unofficial status, as the event was not yet open for national football teams to compete, and only had limited participation of three or four club