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Referee rules out Rehhagel favour

AFP, Lisbon
Euro 2004 final referee Markus Merk on Saturday dismissed suggestions he would favour Greece in their clash with Portugal because of a long-standing acquaintance witii their German coach, Otto Rehhagel.
Merk, also a German, has known Rehhagel for over two decades but said reports he was also the Greek coach's private dentist were wide of the mark and that his shared nationality would make no difference.
"I referee a lot of matches in foreign countries where German players and coaches are active so it is somethingnormal forme.
"I've heard a lot of discussions about whether he (Rehhagel) is a patient of mine. He is not. I've 5,000 patients and there are lots of Portuguese and Greeks among them.
"I have five restaurants tiiat 1 go to. One is Greek and one is Portuguese."
Merk added: "As the refereeing team we have only one tiling in our minds - the game starts 0-0 and we have only football in our mind."
Merk's comments came after details of his relationship with Rehhagel were splashed all over the Portuguese media.
'Record' daily headlined its Euro 2004 digest with the words "the friends from Kaiserslautern." the club Rehhagel won the German league title with in 1998, adding that
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"Merk and Rehhagel are old friends and have a special affinity for the German city," Merk's birthplace.
"Merk was Rehhagel's family dentist," Record added.
The '24 horas' daily was even more blunt, getting its retaliation in early ahead of Sunday's showdown.
"Watch out! The referee is a friend of the Greeks," 24 horas said in a huge headline emblazoned across its front page.
"Markus Merk has known the opposing coach for 27 years," said 24 horas, which harrumphed that this suggested "dangerous links" between the man in the middle and the Greeks, who were Portugal's party poopers on the opening day of the tournament and who now are hellbent on shocking the hosts once again.
Rehhagel says he expects no help whatsoever from Merk.
"He is very rigorous and once sent me packing from the bench in a German league game," Rehhagel reminisced, thinking back to his brief stintin charge of Bayern Munich.
Portuguese coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said he had no concerns about Merk's relationship with Rehhagel.
"The referee of the final is a wonderful man," said the Brazilian, who can become the first coach to win the World Cup and European title with two different teams.
"He is someone I consider a friend,
because you can have friends without them favouring you on the field of play.
"I am sure he will do a good job in the final and I don't want him criticised.
"If one of my Brazilian friends was coaching tomorrow's final I would be happy for him because it would be the most prestigious day of theirlives.
"But that wouldn't be to say he would be biased towards me because we were friends."