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Im glad we won, but just like I had said, no wingers and no speed down the sides and no guys making runs did this game in and prevented us from ever really being threatening. You can't have fortounis, mantalos and pelkas all play together and not have guys making runs for them so they can distribute the ball. Kourbelis and zeca shouldn't be together cause neither of them can really make crisp passes to set up attacks. Hence why fortou and mitro were coming back to get the ball. Why oh why the f did he bring out bakashitas? Like for what purpose. Like these coaches need to watch fn game tape. I don't care how old lazaros is, bakasetas couldn't tie lazaros shoe lace for him. Laz can play cam, cf, lw and rw. How is a guy like that not used. Torosidis and koutris were great today, imagine they had wingers to make overlapping runs with them today. Koulouris and mitro should have been on together. If your gonna just cross it in the box, might as well have 2 guys for the fins to worry about. Would have created more space for mitro. There's a lot of potential here, hopefully this coach figures it out.

with Lazaros and either of Fetfa or Gianniotas or Mantahtis, we would of won 2 or 3-0

I’m done with Mantalos he is garbage... Him and Bakasetas should not be on this team.. Pelkas has not been good either... We need Donis healthy because he would be our best option... I understand The coach wanted to get the win and see what he is working with and maybe more then going for the 2nd goal and exposing our back end maybe he thought the win would be a confidence booster going forward.. It’s the only reason why he wouldn’t push forward and go with 2 strikers imo... The fact that he cut Tzioils and Tzavellas and said he is going to bring some players from the under 21 needs to be encouraging to all of us.. Yes the style of the NT will NEVER be pretty and we will always struggle to score goals but I do have faith in this coach that he will eventually make the right moves.. The game against estonia now that the match doesn’t mean anything is a good time for him to experiment with his line up.. I thought Koutris looked good today...

I don't have low expectations. We cant play minors and westruggled in the Santos era as well. I remember that 1-0 narrow win vs Liechtenstein. We can't open closed defences. And when we don't we panic and open behind. We never could play teams that park it against us. We do better vs better opposition. I think my posts here still exist. I said win 3 games at home and 2 draws away I ll be happy. Expected to win Estonia twice. The draws didn;t come.

When we won at Cyprus 2-1 in 2018 World Cup qualifying and before that I believe when Greece beat Cyprus 2-0 in Athens.

if We finish 2nd place with 12 points we still have a slim chance to qualify for the Nations league playoffs as long as one of the other 4 group winners qualify via the Euro campaign… Lets hope we don't draw 2 power houses for the qualifiers or we are screwed...

@J1078 i agree. Bouzoukis seems like the midfielder you were explaining. He can pass has vision and has an incredible shot. He has something special and I hope Angele is keeping an eye on him. I wasn’t too high on Mitro this game. I hate it when he doesn’t sing the anthem with the rest of the team. He looks like he doesn’t care. Even Zeca sings it. Also his performance wasn’t that great. Zeca and Kourbelis are good for shutting down opponents and running. They can’t control the midfield so that’s why i suggested that we play someone who can pass and move forward with ball effectively instead of always passing backwards. Also Pelkas and Mantalos don’t play like wingers. You could see they were trying to always move in the middle to do things. A winger is supposed to make runs down the line and take players on and whip in crosses. Instead we saw them more central than outwide where they should be. They are not natural wingers like Lazaros, Fetfatzidis, Manthatis, Lamprou, Chatzigiovanis, Limnios, Donis and Gianniotas. Even Bouzoukis can play there but I prefer him as a CM.

Mantalos and Pelkas shouldn’t see game time. They should be on the bench going forward. Bakasetas should dropped out of the team completely. You said something about how our style would will never be pretty and how we will always struggle to score goals. There are two solutions to these problems in my opinion: 1. Drop Mantalos and Pelkas to the bench and play Donis and Fetfatzidis on the wings. That’s if we stay with a 4-2-3-1. 2. Play 1 of Kourbelis or Zeca in midfield and play Galanopoulos or someone more attack minded there eg. Mantalos or Pelkas. We need to stop playing players out of position and need players who are more talented to get the job done. We all know Mantalos and Pelkas play better central so why not put one of them as the 8? Why do we need to have two 6s playing behind Fortounis? Kourbelis and Zeca are not technicians and aren’t really accurate passes of the ball. That’s why we need a proper 8. This would result in more opportunities created. The finishing part of the game needs to worked by the players. It’s all about which player you put in which position and what type of player he is.

laughed when there was an article saying that in 2016 the ethiniki was more concerned with their hair gel than qualifying lol.

With that logic Kone and Karnezis should be on the roster as well.

Mak just scored the 4-1 for Slovakia in the NL against Ukraine in 61’ and was subbed out of in 69’ for Stoch.

Although, the lookalike Clint Eastwood or nowdays Chris Pratt of the Ethniki has been undoubtably Alex Tzioli$! He had Skibbe in a trancient state.

Like we mentioned in the other thread, a solid win can put us in good position to get into the NL playoffs through the back door, but that's just so far off and hopefully we will just make it through EURO Qualifiers. Important to build on momentum and buy into the new coach's system going into the new campaign. Roster update: Atromitos' Risvanis called up to replace injured Manolas for Sunday's match.

Βρήκα δυο εισιτήρια στην κερκίδα των γηπεδούχων. Επειδή ειναι δίπλα θα προσπαθήσουμε να περάσουμε στην κερκίδα των φιλοξενούμενων. Βέβαια ψιλοκοροϊδευω τον εαυτό μου γιατι ξέρω πολυ καλά οτι κατι τέτοιο είναι πολύ δύσκολο να γίνει στα αγγλικά γήπεδα!

2 up front koulouris and mitro and just crossing like it's going outta style might be the formula then beef up defense with 3atb. might be our strengths. similar to how we played in the euro. we don't have much in the middle besides fortounis which is in attacking third and very rarely can get involved because our cm's can't connect a penetrating pass. it's all wing play. let's stop trying to be something we are not and play to our dna. 2 strikers. lotsa crosses. 3 cb's. we got the cb's for it. sokratis, manolas, kpaps, siovas, retsos are all great choices.

ideally we start donis on the left and lazaros on the right. then fetfa to sub off lazaros since he's gassed. masouras also looks impressive and has scored goals against the big 4 in on season as a winger. let's play players in their natural position. being a good player is largely a matter of instinct. if they spend years domisticating themselves at a certain part of the pitch it's way too hard to just play a different position for such make/break games. I would rather have a low level winger like Gianniotas playing his natural position than Stafylidis as a lw. After seeing what we saw past 2 years.

The game was similar to other games we played. We had chances but what is clear is that Mantalos/Pelkas can not play on the wings. They just do not get open. I was impressed with Torosidis, after all these years, his crosses were pretty good. Koutris also did a good job. Vlacho didn't have much to do but other than his one intervention when the Finish striker was clear on goal. What I likes about him is that as soon as he got the ball, he was ready to counter but no one was ready to get the ball to start going up the pitch. He would turn right/left, no were to counter. Also, at the end of the game, no sense of urgency, they were playing passes back to the keeper. I must say, Sokratis is the epitome of a captain, he tried and hustled. You can tell he gives it his all.

You know what ? Imma say it. We win Estonia in a couple of days imma be happy. There is gonna be no team in League C finishing 2nd with 12 points. Mark my words. 2 years ago Monaco made a splendid run in Ligue 1 finishing with 95 points. They were unstoppable. PSG lost the champion spot because they collected 87. Does the fact that Monaco είχε γ@μ@μ@νο άστρο that year diminish the fact that PSG is the best team? Nu-uh. So a literally above-expectations run from the Finns shouldn't diminish the fact that we produced as epected. I said before NL begins that 12 points are doable. Seems like I was pretty close. What could not be expected was Finns not losing points up until now, putting the pressure on us. Losing to the Hunns away was acceptable. This circus yesterday couldn't get past the half. We should ve at leat drew them. We learn from our mistakes.

Its about creating and Finishing Off half chances that the top players do. You can't coach speed into someone.

I agree. The formation is fine it’s just who you put in that formation is what counts.

If fans want a 3 5 2 - for real, then Ange Postacoglou has the balls to implement it, as long as it is carried out to the letter, the defence should be acceptable. Anyway, see what Ange A has to offer now that he is there. We know already he offer 4 2 3 1. Its not as if 4 2 3 1 is overl successful for the Pirates. Should try something else like 2 up front.

@Dean97 until we get a solid Midfielder to emerge that can control the middle of the field and feed the ball we will always sttruggle to create offensively... Zeca has heart and hustles but he is not the guy to do that and either is Kourbelis... I think Doinis will help when healthy on the wing.. I like Fetfa and think he has talent but he’s hardly getting any playing time so I don’t see him being called up anytime soon. Lazaros should be here 100% but his conditioning is horrible he gets gassed very easy... the only spots that should be secure is Manolas, Socratis, Fortounis,Mitro and Toro ( until he starts to get tired) Everyone else they need to experiment with... I would add Donis to the list but we haven’t seen enough yet...

I disagree, Greece have to finish 2nd in the group to advance into the UEFA EURO 2020 qualifying playoffs. This is a meaningful match.

Good points J1078 playing Bakasetas was the coach's only mistake but he came on for like 9 minutes. It's good that he started of with a win and a clean sheet, hopefully that can build some positive momentum for the Euro campaign. Going forward he shouldn't bother calling up mantalos he has been disappointing for the NT recently and going back to the last campaign were he missed a sitter to give us a win at Bosnia. My patience with Pelkas is wearing thin but if he goes with him I'm fine with it as long as he starts putting in better performances. I'm happy we don't have to see Tziolis & Tzavellas on the field anymore.

Να ξαναπάρει η ντροπή της προσφυγιάς τους 3 πόντους. Δεν θέλουμε άλλες αφαιρέσεις. Να πάρουμε το πρωτάθλημα στο χορτάρι - θα είναι το πιο παντελονάτο!

You are right, but leaving out Lazaros and Fetfa was a sin. He was left with no other attacking player than impotent Bakaseta to sub on in the last few minutes. Bakasetas is always guaranteed to suck. I don't want to stress on Fetfa, and people on these boards have made solid arguments against him being frail and having no finish, but I don't care, with 10 minutes left he could change the pace of the game 100x better than Bakasetas.

I guess I'm just not as upset as you guys because I'd already given up on winning the group. This win represents progress. Vlachodimos kept a clean sheet in his debut, the lineup is already way different than Skibbe, things will only get better.

Pelkas and Mantalos have been so s%$#!.

What a disater this campaign has been. The 3rd division of Europe and we fall short. As it stands we are ranked 30 in the nations league meaning pot 3 for qualifiers. 30 is the last place in pot 3 meaning a loss or tie with Estonia and we could end up in pot 4 for the qualifiers we are screwed. We will have 2 contenders to deal maybe 3 to qualify

To be honest, I think Bakasetas only plays so much because he's handsome and his name is fun to say.

yeah I think even thessaloniki. Athens has become very left wing and a lot of Greeks don't want to be known as supporting Greece and being patriotic because they're scared of being labelled fascist. Rest of Greece I don't think gives a hoot.