Greece are not a team with big names, but they do have big hearts.

Make that very big hearts.

Panagiotis Yannakis, the Greece coach, watched his players remain composed against a Russian onslaught on Thursday night, even when trailing by 11 points in the first half.

The Greeks fought back to claim a 66-61 triumph, clinching a place in the EuroBasket 2005 semi-final and also securing a berth at FIBA World Championship 2006 in Japan.

Tough Greek defence was essential, and it will be again when they take on France in Saturday's semi-final.

The French secured their place with an upset of Lithuania.

Nikolaos Chatzivrettas, the Greek guard, said of the comeback against Russia: "It takes a big heart to have such a defence.

"We play excellent in defence, and (Theo) Papaloukas had a super game. Now we need more. We are happy, but we are looking forward to the semi-finals already."

Papaloukas is a big point guard who comes off the bench for Greece.

He tore apart the Russians with 23 points, making him the game's leading scorer.

"Russia have a lot of good players, but we played good defence and stopped them, and we had easy baskets.

"We believed we could win and we made it. We'll continue from here. We cannot stop."

"Now we can think about the gold medal," said Greek forward Konstaninos Tsartsaris.

Demos Ntkoudis came off the bench and scored 11 points and grabbed five boards.

"All the guys were fantastic," he said. "If we didn't have a heart, we wouldn't be able to win the game."

Mihalis Kakiouzis, the best rebounder of the Greeks tonight with 11, declared: "We are a team. All the players are ready to play, and this is what a team means.

"We have qualified for the World Championship, and we don't need the wild card, like some people thought we would need.

"We promise the fans we will win at least one of the last two games and bring a medal."

Dimitrios Diamantidis missed all nine of his shots from the field but did not care.

The only thing that matter was victory.

"The happiest thing for me is that I'm part of this team," he said.

"I'm proud to wear this jersey. We are not satisfied just being one of the top four teams here. We want to go the final!"