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We just went toe to toe with the best team in the world. Scoring 2 goals in 5 minutes was unreal. This was a huge confidence booster heading into March. A lot of positives from the boys tonight. We all should be proud of this performance..

Why they didn't reseed based on FIFA rank is baffling. Greece should be playing both at home!

Diego says hi to all PAOKtzides.

The final was a random draw, it fell Georgia's way. Their stadium holds 55k, it will be packed and the atmosphere will be electric. Tough road trip for us for sure. As for today's game, so proud of the lads that was a great performance. Foot down from the start, showed they are a better team and kept going until the game was completely safe. The team has definitely developed more of a killer edge under Poyet. Credit to him and the players, I don't think there has been one game in his tenure that we lost where we were expected to win. We beat the teams we should, that is how we topped our group in the Nations League, that is how we stayed in touch with France and the Netherlands during qualifying and that is now why we are one win away from our first major tournament in 10 years.

Crazy how we all get punished for the last 3 events being caused by OLY fans. If this was PAOK, we would be penalized 10 points and no fans remainder of the year.

i guess i'll shut up about the line up... lol

At the end of the day like some guys said already France had to rely on a penalty to beat us. We held our own and we showed we won’t be an easy out for any team. This to me even though we lost was a huge confidence booster and we are really starting to show that this team is starting to put it together and hopefully have leave the dreadful years behind us. I haven’t read one negative article or listened to one negative podcast about how Greece played. Everything was very positive even from the French media. In September we play in Holland first and then against Gibraltar at home. Netherlands plays us and then go into Ireland. At the very least if we can get a draw against the Netherlands we should easily get 3 points against Gibraltar which will still keep us ahead of them. Hopefully they also drop points in Ireland. This is the first time in years where I actually feel optimistic about this team.

Poyet addressed it a few days ago and essentially said, he wasn't called up for these matches because in order to fit him in, the formation needs to be changed from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1. It seems Poyet, as other managers before him at both club and country level don't like Fortounis' lack of work rate and discipline without the ball. He did make a point to say just because he wasn't called this time around doesn't mean he isn't in future plans. In a 4-3-3, Poyet wants his midfield 3 to press without the ball and track the opposition not just play with the ball. Bakasetas, Siopis, Kourbelis offer these things. Clearly he thinks Bakasetas offers enough attacking drive (with the wingers and striker) to create enough opportunities to score. Poyet also described Bakasetas as 'untouchable' atm in his current Ethniki form and it is hard to argue given his performances over the last year. Fortounis has long been discussed here and in the Greek media, he's a media darling and they are just as shocked he hasn't been included. Me personally, I see the reasons why but don't necessarily agree with his exclusion all together. Here's a link to Poyet's explanation in full for anyone interested. https://www.sport24.gr/football/apokalypseis-poget-ayta-eipa-sto-tilefono-me-ton-fortoyni-o-mpakasetas-einai-untouchable.10061489.html

I'm f***en gutted. Speechless. Which is rare for me. I was so naïve yesterday thinking its a done deal. I really thought there was no way in hell we were not going to win this game. I wasn't expecting a blow out but a 1-0 or 2-1 hard fought Hellas victory was a sure thing in my mind. Once again, I was brutally wrong. This team has let us down once again. I simply don't get it. There are other "smaller population" countries in Europe such as Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, Holland, etc. that field competitive teams annually. Even the blockhead Albanians qualified directly. I simply don't understand. That was one of the worst performances I've seen from the Ethniki and I've been watching every game since the 1994 World Cup debacle. Countless backwards passes, no urgency, no desperation, playing in fear against a Georgia...come on! Gutted.

Red Cards to both benches. Won't affect anyone on the field. Also not sure the Poyet hate? He's gotten us a chance to get into a Euro, more than any of the last 3 coaches can say. Can't keep rotating coaches.

I agree with you but they did a draw after qualifying ended. Wales also gets two home matches and will play Poland at home. Greece have won the last 4 matches in Georgia. Most recently in 2022 wcup qualifier 2 nil. Georgia is a better team but we have improved a lot since JVS left and Poyet has the team beating countries that Greece should be beating. Let’s Go 🇬🇷

Exact 40 days to go. This one-legged match is a must win game. Winner faces an away game either in Georgia or Luxemburg for a spot in Group F of Euro 2024. Who is on fire? Who not? Perfect lineup to do the trick?

That is how you play team football, every freakin match Greece must play this way to ensure victory. The next match in Georgia will be a tricky one, but history shows it's on Greece's side.

I read online that Kazakhstan is missing one of their starters due to suspension for our game, and Georgia is missing one of their best players for the game vs Luxemburg.

Considering we haven't made a major tournament in years this team is in no position to take any team lightly. This wont be an easy match and they better not start looking to the final match before this game is over. Kazakhstan will not be an easy out. In saying that we have a golden opportunity to finally make a major tournament and if Greece cant come out on top against Kazakhstan, Georgia or Luxemburg than we really haven't progressed at all under Poyet. We need to now take that next step.

Our biggest game in almost 7 years. Still over a month out but some things to keep an eye on in terms of player availability/form. -Tsimikas returned to the Liverpool bench and was subbed on to a play the last few moments on the weekend. He is fit again which is good news. -Chatzidiakos, since Christmas has only played 45 minutes for Cagliari in Serie A. He last had a full 90 on the 2nd of Jan, in a 4-1 cup defeat to AC Milan. As one of the prefered CB's it is a concern. He was hurt in training over the weekend, not sure on prognosis at this stage but assuming its minor Poyet will have to a decision to make if we get to this game and he's still riding the bench. -Vlachodimos: Nottingham Forest brought in another keeper, so he's effectively been relegated to 3rd choice. New keeper (Belgian Metz Sels) hasn't been setting the world on fire, which hopefully means Vlacho will get another shot at some stage. He hasn't played a Premier League game since early December and last played all-together in the FA Cup almost a month ago. Again Poyet will have another decision to make if he continues to not play come March. -Baldock has been injured the last month or so, I believe he is expected to be fit for this game. If fit he is a starter for Sheffield United, so if his body is right he will come with some game time under his belt. -Kourbelis was loaned to another Turkish club (Karagumruk) in January, and was injured after one game. He returned over the weekend and played some mins of the bench. Hopefully he continues to play over the next 5 weeks and is in some good form come the 21st of March.

Job #1 qualify. Job #2 don't lose to Turkey

We looked like we played good football for a while and yes Bakasetas can hit them well from distance. I was mostly impressed with Ioannidis for the way he held up the ball and got into great positions and that finish was a typical strikers goal. Good on him.

I don't know about you guys but its been quite a few years since I have felt hopeful, super nervous, confident, and dreadful all at once the way I do right now LOL. PAME ELADARRRRRAAAAA!!!

Kind of ugly, but Hearts is not much of an obstacle. If we don't eat them alive in Thessaloniki, the heat will do the job for us. Hot takes: weak-ass penalty given to Hearts Murg > Konstantelias Brandon Thomas has only his workrate and teammate injuries keeping him employed Team was consistently way too goddamn cute with trying to let passes go by them. Bit them on the ass like six times. Tzimas actually held up the ball and attacked....better than I thought? I bet Lucescu was pissed he got all that stoppage time to play in. Soares was fine, but Rahman is a menace; will be great to see him back We definitely need a winger. Taison can't start every game, and Zivkovic eventually needs to be rested. Narey is more concerned with staying uninjured than he is interested in playing for this team.

I tip my hat to you Dutch Eagle for all your intrepid work digging up the latest news on our boys abroad

Lots to be positive about with the NT during this window. We beat Ireland which was essential and kept them behind us. Then the team went to France who I believe are the best country in world football when you look at the lineup they throw out and what players are on the bench. So to go into France where Holland got crushed and only loose on a pen is commendable. The French couldn’t score even after Mavropanos red card where they botched a 2 v1 and 4 v 1 as well. Mavropanos basically threw the game away as I believe we would have held them to a nil nil draw. Regardless I’m proud of the performance and how calm the team was especially in the first half. I believe we will get a draw in Holland and that will set us up well because I could see Ireland holding the Dutch to a draw in the following match day. I believe the Ethniki will lock up 2nd and a Euro ticket when the Dutch come to Athens where they will taste defeat.

You guys may like this podcast from Hellas Football https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/hellas-footy-pod/id1536595945?i=1000614612222

G'day m8, throw another koala on the barbie!

f***ing embarrassing absolute f***ing bullshit

Hi to all the Phantis/Greeksoccer.com folks! Let's go Elladara!!!

Boys this game isn't going to be easy. That stadium is going to be electric and the Georgian team is looking to make history in front of there fans. They sold out the entire stadium in 5 hours 54K. Greece needs to try and get an early goal to take the crowd out of it early. its going to be a tough game. Αμόκ στη Γεωργία για το ματς της ιστορίας της: Σε πέντε ώρες εξαντλήθηκαν τα 54.000 εισιτήρια για τον τελικό πρόκρισης στο Euro 2024 με την Ελλάδα (sport24.gr)

Πεντάρα μπαλαρα

Really strong performance. They looked on it right away and determined. Put the game away very early. This was encouraging.

I did some research on Kazakhstan, they are a decent side produced one shocking result in defeating Denmark at home 3-2. They lost twice to Slovenia 1-0, beat Finland away 2-1 and lost to them at home 2-1. Of course, Denmark beat them at home 3-1. Kazakhstan can score goals, but their defense is suspect. Sure, Greece can't take them lightly.

Wow. I ate my words from last week lol.

PAOK volleyball team won the Greek Supercup (last season's champion vs. cup winner) defeating Olympiakos 3:2 in a game played on Olympikos's home turf at Renti.

pash is buying beers!!!

Group F portugal turkey czech playoff C

Release of November 30th: #47

Nice result for the boys! France came out hard and had a few regulars in their starting eleven. First half we were absorbing a lot of pressure. In the second half we looked sharp with some nice ball movement. Great volley goal from Bakasetas he can hit them well! Gianoulis a beautiful set up for Ioanidis goal. We got some luck with that double post shot and Mbappe hitting the crossbar. Pavlidis struggled when he came in. He is falling down the depth chart on our list of strikers.

EPO need to resolve this soon. Players don’t need any distractions and all the focus has to be on winning these two matches!

I think if we cant win a playoff against any of those teams we really don't deserve to be there anyway.

Even the announcers are saying, maybe one the first one you can justify a little bit, but the second one no way in hell any referee would call that a penalty at that stage in the game.. We didn’t lose because the referee we still couldn’t score a goal but you could see the bias . I think our team has improved and we are definitely the favourites to win the nations league. Considering we had the hardest group in the euro qualifiers and qualifying was always going to be difficult I got to give props to the boys outside of one terrible game in Holland. We did well. Poyet deserves to take us to the nations league playoffs.. My only criticism I think he waited way to long to go for it.. 10 minutes was not enough.. Also player selection has been an issue with every coach since Santos left.. Nations league playoffs: Greece vs Kazakhstan Latvia vs Luxenberg

First time we are playing in a sold out stadium in years. This would be huge if we can win in front of the fans and get them to start coming back regularly..

Greece big win!! France help us too.

Goutas called up to replace the injured Chatzidiakos. Considering the squad flies for Ireland today and he plays his club football in Wales, he will fly directly to Dublin and link up with the squad there. With 4 center backs still in the squad, I feel it confirms Tzavellas is only being called up due to either Poyet wanting a "personality" in the squad or EPO forcing it upon him. He isn't seen as a feasible option unless the game is either comfortably won or lost.

Did not see the game as I was in the middle of all the Oktoberfest craziness. Followed the game on line but after the first 1 liter the score was a disappointing 1:0. Continued drinking and completely forgot about the game only to find out the final score after I got back to the hotel. Good result and hopefully we can get something out of the home game against Eintracht.

I am a fan of Poyet and what he's doing with the Ethniki, but there are 3-4 of these call-ups that are puzzling. Bouchalakis and Limnios have not played one minute of football in the first month of the season, yet they are un-droppable. While Alexandropoulos and Konstantelias are not called-up. Tzavellas he wants for experience(dressing room etc), but seems like he's played one out of three for a newly promoted side in Turkey, not exactly inspiring form. Poyet is trying to do what Otto and Santos did before him, have a 'club' like feel to the NT where it's the same core of players that are called-up. While that has some merit it can also lead to disharmony amongst players/coaches/fans. Ultimately if we get results people will forget about these decisions, but if you add the layer of Fortounis stepping away the media and football public are starting to slowly starting to turn on Poyet. The atmosphere around the team had been so positive because of great results, hopefully this doesn't throw too much of a spanner into the works and the team can keep chugging along. You can guarantee if we come out of the 2 games next week with 4 points, everyone will be singing his praises. Let's see what happens.

Somehow AEK clawed back with 2 extra time goals to advance to the playoff round of Champions League Qualifying. We have 2 teams with a chance to make the group stage in Panathinaikos and AEK. Olympiacos also are a step away from the Europa League Group Stage as are we in the Conference League. Aris almost joined us with a shocking upset of Dynamo Kiev but gave up a late goal to crash out: overall one of the best European starts for Greek teams in a long while. It pains me to root for some of these teams but after the coefficient work we put in 2 years ago, we deserve something in return from them. PAME ELLADA

OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH

I think part of it was the ref giving it back for not calling the prior penalties. A few points: 1 - There were potentially 3 penalties that could have been called. The one that was, was a penalty. The retake was suspect. 2 - The red card was a red card. Even if it wasn't a red card, it would have been a yellow which would have been a red card. 3 - Our defense was good - we did make a few mistakes but overall, France was relying on penalty calls to score. Think about that, a team which pummeled the Netherlands 4-0 had to rely on penalty calls to score on us. That's pretty impressive. And by the way, we played with 10 men.

it doesn't matter who we play , what matters is that Dutch Eagle will be there !

Reports saying Poyet has decided on 8-9 of the starting XI, no massive surprises. -----------Vlachodimos----- Baldock--Mavropanos--Chatzidiakos--Tsimikas ------Mantalos------Siopis-----Bakasetas Masouras-----Giakoumakis----Pelkas Kourbelis is being considered in place of either Siopis or Mantalos as is Pavlidis to lead the line. I read Konstantelias is also being considered to take one of the wingers spots but I doubt he would get a start. 14,000 tickets have been sold for the game, it means there will be a solid crowd there to cheer the boys on. Hopefully it ends up being 20,000+ and the atmosphere is electric!

Panserraikos is back in the top tier after 12 years. A draw against Anagennisi Karditsa was enough as their last match of the season will be a 3-0 win on forfeit against Apollon Larisa.