"The national team's success has untied my hands," said Orfanos, who has been trying to overhaul the national game by curbing rampant hooliganism and putting bankrupt clubs on a sound footing.

Orfanos was not alone in heralding the change.

"Greek football had reached the bottom, it was like it stood before a wall with no way through in sight. And in the midst of that, the national team makes it to the final four," said Yiorgos Georgiou, one of the country's most popular football commentators.

Signs of a revival are already visible with bitter rivals united in support of the national team, as club presidents rush to table reform proposals for the country's leagues.

Football fans hope their favourite sport can emulate the Greek basketball team which was catapulted from insignificance when they were crowned surprise European champions in 1987.

But others fear the problems are too deep rooted to be solved overnight.

"Most experts are pessimistic," said Antonis Panoutsos, a commentator with state television NET.

"Greek football is in such a mess and so rotten that without government intervention, nothing good will come out of the team's success - we'll just think back of it as something good that happened a long time ago," he said.

Hooliganism is the biggest problem.

According to official figures, Greece annually deploys more than 350,000 police officers to counter match violence which is increasingly keeping fans away from stadia.

In 2003, 700 fans were detained over violent incidents that injured 112 people, including 48 police.

Ticket sales have nosedived. Fewer than 1,000 people show up at many first division matches. Clubs have neglected merchandising and come to financially depend on wealthy presidents and television broadcast rights.

But the time of rich bosses passed for good after the Athens Stock Exchange collapsed in 1999-2001.

In 2002, broadcast rights plummeted after the bankruptcy of a local, digital television station which had overpaid to get them, and players' previously inflated wages melted away.

The best went abroad to ply their trade in foreign clubs and it is those who now form the backbone of Greece's national team.

Top striker Angelos Charisteas and towering defender Traianos Dellas left their respective clubs Aris Salonika and AEK Athens after they ended up on the verge of financial collapse and relegation.

Bankrupt teams with demotivated players fail to offer high-quality football, with many fans believing match-rigging is rampant.

Greek teams are uncapable of competing internationally, with the exception of Panathinaikos, who made it to the European Champions Cup final once in 1971 and twice to the semi-finals in 1984 and 1996.

But the national team advancing to a final four meeting against the Czech Republic has proven to be a glimmer of hope.

"These have been the best days for Greek football and now we have nothing to lose," said Greece defender Stylianos Giannakopoulos.