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I won't rehash most of the names here, and I don't have much input on players who don't have connections to the only team I care about (PAOK). But as far as those are concerned: Charisis will, in a few years, be an obvious call up. Kid has a ton of talent but was not trusted by his last two coaches at PAOK (for whatever reason) - he's been getting plenty of time at his current club, however, and I expect them to activate their buy out option (1.5mm) next summer. Kitsiou is playing there as well, but not quite as consistently as Charisis. As Torosidis declines, he'll have a chance to make his case. At this point I don't think he's good enough; he might end up a backup option at some point. Decent as a winger as well. Needs to work on his crosses. Tzavellas - rapidly declining, creates a rotten atmosphere in the locker room, now is our chance to make a clean break with him let Stafylidis battle it out with whoever else can play in that position. Limnios, Lamprou - good players, needs to be seen if they're able to continue at this level for a whole season. Their numbers aren't amazing but I like them both. Wouldn't be surprised to see them get their first call ups in the next two years. Pelkas - versatile guy, plays with real balls. Not the kind of ACM who will conduct the offense like a symphony (his passing is just not good enough). However, to counter that, he is very direct - might end up more like a SS than an ACM (and is probably why he's playing as a winger these days). Mistakidis - I believe he is better than Pelkas, will shortly be returning from a torn MCL. If all goes well, he'll make a solid case for inclusion in future teams. Very good as a second striker, usually plays as RW, is comfortable as LW. Tziolis - hasn't been able to play at this level for at least four years. Kick him to the curb. Seems like a nice guy, but that doesn't count for much when he can't make a pass, press an opponent, or shoot. Sokratis/Kpaps/Manolas - good competition between the three of them, no concerns here. As for Chatziisaias, I liked the guy but even if he improves massively, there will be a very narrow window between Sokratis/Kpaps declining and the next generation of CBs taking their place. Very unlikely that he'll ever get a cap, in my opinion. Will probably end up like Katsikas, as a journeyman in second-rate leagues who settles down in Ukraine/Romania.

For me, these are some of the things that cost us and lessons learnt, Manolas FIFA suspension in game 1 <If he plays, no way we lose 4-1> Injuries to Donis and Mantalos <if they play, we score at least 1 in Athens> Failure to mark Modric in game 1, i.e. the incorrect use of Zeca in the flank in game 1 Loss of form of Karnezis, Stafylidis and Samaris Use of name players not playing for their respective clubs, Karnezis, Stafylidis and Samaris Reliance on Tziolis, as the DM <maybe no better option here> Loss of form Fortounis Lack of or non-development of Vellios & Diamantakos Mitroglou not at 100% Not trialling Bakakis Lack of playing time for Lykogianis, as backup for Tzavellas Holebas retirement, for Tzavellas Scibbe's summary at the end was a correct assessment. We need to develop the offensive side to our game but we are currently limited with few solutions from the League. Most of the big clubs and even mid tiers don't have many Greeks in attacking positions like another Mitroglou. The reason he picked Velios and Diamantakos is because of their potential at a young age, but unfortunately they have not developed to the required standard for international football.

I believe we can all agree the better team advanced to the World Cup. Don't get me wrong, I'm not rubbing it to your nose, it's just how it is at the moment - Croatia's a better them. However, had you played this way in Zagreb (more aggressive, no silly mistakes), it would have been a tight one. Your team definitely has future. I liked both Gianniotas and Pelkas and I'm definitely happy they were not in the game sooner. :) I'm seeing a lot of pessimistic predictions regarding the future of Greek football. It's normal to be in that kind of mood after an unsuccessful campaign, but I'm quite sure after a couple of days you will realize this team has potential. Someone said he is sure Greece will qualify for EURO 2020. I agree. I will definitely have my eye on the development of your team. I didn't like seeing a couple of Serbian flags at Karaiskakis today - I respect historical relations of your two nations, but these were there for other reason today. ;) I'm sorry we booed each other's national anthems. Don't take booing in Zagreb personally, we do it to almost everyone :P Anyhow, Croats have huge respect for Greek people and Greek history culture, we find your mentality similar to ours, and it's a shame both of us couldn't qualify. I personally will certainly miss Greece in the World Cup. I hope our next duel is on EURO 2020 quarter-final/semi-final/final. Talk to you soon. Pame Ellada, pame Kroatia! :)

Greeece will never do this but they need to limit the number of foreign players that play in Greece. Clubs should hire Greek coaches who want to develop Greek players.

Man I actually read that as in resignation first, got excited for a sec. Massive mistake if they resign him!!! We need to start blowing up the nt twitter feed and the insta page with #fireskibbe or something like that. We had nothing to lose on Sun and still he didn't go after it! Like when 911 happened and they told Bush, and he sat staring blankly for a few mins, that's Skibbe "sir, we're still tied, we need to go full attack here" *crickets*. When you're the coach and you can't figure out that Tziolis is killing the mid, you shouldn't be a coach.

when the fish starts to smell, it starts from the head.......

@Molon Lave Hahaha, well done, great choice! :) Regarding athletics, I admire Konstantinos Kenteris.

Androutsos and Limnios could be called up in the near future. Manthatis should follow aswell. They have potential to be really good. Barkas the keeper looks talented as well as the 24 year old Gianniotis.

This campaign was a much better showing than our Euro 2016 qualifying campaign. That was rock bottom, and we came damn close to qualifying this time. We had a disaster in Zagreb, and deservingly so, we're not going to Russia. It's easier to qualify for the Euros with the expanded field, I would hope we can at least get into that. Like many of you, I believed after our surprise European championship in 2004 that major tournaments would become an expectation and for a while they were. We have to get back to that now. Even the Germans and the French and the Italians, all the big boys are constantly introducing youth. Over the hill veterans like Tziolis and Maniatis need to be pushed out. If Skibbe is going to stay on as manager, he needs to get to know the players, especially the young ones. As many of you said, we better have a lot of friendlies between now and the start of Euro qualifying. We took the first steps out of hell this campaign. Now time to keep going.

Yeah may have been tit for tat. They quietened as the anthem went on. I have it in my mind that some of the elders in the crowd went around whacking the kids booing with pandofles to make them shut up ANYWAYS - My favorite thio married a Croatian and i have massive respect for that family and for all Croatians and literally any other person. Do unto others what you would have them do to you ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 7:12 Όλα όσα θέλετε να σας κάνουν οι άλλοι άνθρωποι, αυτά να τους κάνετε κι εσείς· σ’ αυτό συνοψίζονται ο νόμος και οι προφήτες

If i was in the stands and someone started booing during the Croatian anthem near me i would have clean slapped him across his face. Fvkcing disgrace

Skibbe is not the problem, The real problem is our talent pool / depth and our best players from those positions being out in the first leg against Croatia. If the first leg ended 1-1 then we go through today and i believe 1-1 was an achievable score in Croatia will a fully healthy and no suspensions. Actually with Donis in the mix and all our regulars starting i think we win in Croatia

Firstly for the Skibbe incident : The NT has not qualified for 2 tournaments in a row. The EPO has no money currently. Whoever we bring is not gonna be anything better than Skibbe and obviously with such low paygrade he will also be forced to be part of the "corruption" and the weird callups. Better Skibbe that the players themselves want. Good performance overall. we need completely new players on the 6 , the 8 , both flank wings/midfielders and decent Right back Back up coz Toro is comming to age. I want Skibbe to stay because he is good for the atmosphere and his schemes worked in most of the games. Call ups are an issue but I think EPO would not mention the existence of weird call ups if some weird call ups were forced by them. I just hope Tziolis Maniatis leave the NT. Tzavellas can stay he has had nice games. In the midfielders the only ones from this campaign I'd keep would be Samaris Zeka. Introduction of Kourbelis , Galanopoulos , Siopis , Androutsos needs to be imminent. I'd also like to consider offensive players like Diamantakos , Vellios , Lazaros (due to age) done. Introduction of Donis(already done) Lamprou, Limnios, Gianniotas(already done), Manthatis needs to be imminent. Bakakis becuase we honestly have noone else. We are gonna struggle real time when Torosidis finally retires. Noone will be half as good as him. Half of these players do not deserve the call up yet. But half of the ones already mentioned are no prospects anymore and don't look like developing and fitting the team either. I disagree with Sokratis saying we need to qualify for 2020. I'd rather take a National Team with youths trying to find themselves and develop match after match to a solid NT than try with the same players who are honestly not producing.

I completely agree.. he's a fcking idiot and to needs to go ASAP...

We'll be at Euro 2020. I firmly believe that. And hopefully the next world cup with the expansion for Europe. This really stings though. Once we drew Croatia I was never that hopeful. Sad to not get a goal today though. Donis was needed we just couldn't break them down. Manolas is the class of the team though. He was sorely missed in the first leg.

F*** this coach, he's so beyond competence it's not even funny anymore. Now he's making up excuses for why pylons like Tsiolis were in every game. He has no clue what he's doing and today sealed it. Today was literally do or die and he still had 3 DM's on the field. Of course the players are gonna say that. They're professionals lol they're not gonna say "f this guy, bring in someone else". You could see the frustration of our talented players today, and that stems from who they're playing with and that's on the coach. If he played this line up on thurs, we definitely wouldn't have lost like that. Today's line up would have been considered defensive minded, the line up on Thurs was an utter ma!akia

i m not going to take for serious someone who says we are done because we couldn't get past croatia. we'll bounce back be sure about that.

Wow. Anyone just listen to Skibbe's interview? They asked him if he would be the coach for our next campaign, and he said "Of Course." In a very confident way. They ask him very light questions in these interviews. I'm surprised the Greek media doesn't grill him they way they grill coaches in the Superleague haha. My question, "Why did Tziolis play two full 90 minute games?"

You can't score 3 goals when you don't get 3 shot on target..?

I didn't say the Croats were classy I said it is not classy for our fans to boo the Anthem of another country. NO MATTER WHO WE PLAY

life goes on yes But another int. tournament without Greece is going to be painful

The whole aim of the tie was to get a 0-0 or 1-1 in Croatia and then get a similar result at home, that all went out the window with no manolas in the 1st leg, a less then 100% papastathopoulos and no torosidis as he is a superstar compared to maniatis, as soon as we lost our A grade defensive line it was over for us. those guys at the back deserve so much better, we have such an incredible luxury with them and yet we can't do s%&#036;#&#33; because everything up the field is trash. Zeca can hold his he's down up high as can gianiottas for coming in and having the guts to take the Croatian players on now, and that needs to be the future going forward, we need kids in this team that have the guts to go out and play without fear, this robotic formula simply has to end now.

the formula should be, Feed Mitroglou If he gets service he scores.

Need to schedule the maximum allowed friendlies in lead up to qualifying. Try to get a lineup with mitro, Karelis and donis in it. Don’t need fortounis. He couldn’t sniff tsiartas’s jock

he had saved a couple when he was in udinese. anyway i don't get it why people are bashing karnezis thinking it's easy to save a penalty. probably you're one of those who started blaming him for the costa rica game meanwhile costa rica played with a man down for abotu 60 minutes and still we couldn't utilize our chances. im fairly convinced the hate of karnezis started back then.