"For me the match on Wednesday will be the last match. We lived through a great time and bad times but the important thing is we always were a family," said 37-year-old keeper Nikopolidis.

In the same manner, Nikopolidis' club mate Antzas has followed the trend after winning 25 caps with the national team.

"I have also decided to stop and would like to thank the coach and the staff for all their help throughout the years," said the 32-year-old full-back.

The EURO 2004 champions were handed an early exit from this year's competition after losing 1-0 to Russia on Saturday.

Miracle

German coach Otto Rehhagel was realistic after his side's failure, which he believes to be an expected outcome following their 2004 'miracle'.

"Back in 2004 a miracle happened and that only happens once every 30 years or so. If it happened all the time we wouldn't call it a miracle would we?"

"We obviously wanted to do better but we were also in the same group as Spain and Sweden and I knew we would not be able to just waltz through this.

"Now we have to focus on the match against Spain, it's our duty and our obligation to play as well as we can."