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cyberfish

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Everything posted by cyberfish

  1. Here is the EPO info: http://www.epo.gr/ethniki/detail.asp?e_art...rticle_cat_id=2
  2. It looks many veterans only make the news when they get into trouble after their career is over. Biscan decked a poor taxi driver in Zagreb. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...3-2-2010_pg2_22 He didn't look like the feisty type when he played for us :rolleyes:
  3. Ha ha, the thigs people would do for that paycheck!
  4. I just heard on the radio that Lucian Sanmartean's career with Utrecht is over (adoxo telos she said) and he is in search of a team. All his talent has gone to waste due to his problematic character. Add him to the long list of obscure players who play a couple of games, make a couple of dribbles or score a goal, and the fans go into overdrive complaining for years why the "paixtoura" is not playing more. Most go to other teams to repeat their fate and prove their benching was not unjustified and then fall into obscurity. Who is it going to be this year for PAO? :unsure: Also, Eki Gonzales was singled out by Rosario Central's coach for their latest defeat: http://www.sport-fm.gr/article/145352
  5. Sorry to bring up the doping issue again but today I read this little article that many here might find interesting: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jTtE-b...gZklrI4BIXS7DMQ "t month's Beijing Olympics thought a rare anabolic steroid would help them elude tests, a leading anti-doping expert said Monday. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had been on the lookout for cheats from Greece ever since the drug, methyltrienolone, turned up in the results of 11 Greek weightlifters in April, Don Catlin, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency's committee for science and medicine, told Ta Nea daily. "The Greek case...involved the use of a particularly rare and dangerous anabolic whose use had not been officially recorded before," Catlin said. "Whoever marketed it in Greece undoubtedly argued that it is not harmful and could not be traced, as only small quantities are needed for it to act." In all, fifteen Greek athletes in three disciplines -- weightlifting, swimming and athletics -- have tested positive for methyltrienolone, severely embarrassing Greek authorities which on Monday tabled tougher anti-doping legislation in parliament. "The (Greek) state wants clean athletes," Michalis Liapis, the Greek culture minister responsible for sport, told reporters. The new regulations cut rewards for successful athletes to discourage drug cheating and toughen sanctions against providers of banned substances, corrupt anti-doping officials and sports officials. The doping outbreak has already sparked a preliminary judicial probe here. Among those caught is Fani Halkia, the women's 400m hurdles at the Athens Olympics, whose coach George Panagiotopoulos has now been sued by the IOC for causing damage to its reputation. Catlin is a senior US chemist whose research led to the uncovering of the BALCO steroid scandal and the first test for THG, the once-undetectable drug that dope cheats had used with great success."
  6. I understand that the Olympics is the biggest show on earth and a big business. The Olympics include all these different, and sometimes obscure sports, because they are targeting different markets. It's really simple. Very few people watch everything. Most pick their favorite sports to watch. A certain demographic watches gymnastics, another demographic and age group watches kayak and beach volleyball, another watches diving and so on. I would not be surprised at all to see golf included for that reason. It would bring a whole different demographic of older and higher income audience. It's really like having a store. You sell the main things you always know that would sell (track and field, swimming etc), and then you bring in more customers (and revenues) by offering a little something for others who would otherwise would not be walking into your store. So, the idea of pure olympics, and pure sports is an interesting one, but it's largely academic. Those who argue about pure sports are usually the ones who keep the OAKA seats empty when there are international track and field events. But everyone seems to be watching a little something from the olympics. For the record, in Athens 04 I attended track and field preliminaries, gymnastics finals, and ping pong finals.
  7. This just in: this was not Jimmy Page!Jimmy page was deemed to be too wild looking so they got this clean-cut, respectful-looking, air guitarist :LOL:
  8. Greece is a nebulous country. Investment in sports is considered when Olympic stadiums transform into malls, and exercise is considered when one gyrates a straw through thick frappe foam. :rolleyes:
  9. That's a very defeatest argument and is simply making excuses re file.Why are Olympiakos in a transitional period again? There was no need for it. It's impossible to be in a transitional period 3 times in 5 years. The fact is, whenever Olympiakos start to build a decent foundation, those crazy bastards that run the club destroy the fabric of the team. The answer is not to give Valverde a chance to build in the UEFA Cup. The answer is for Olympiakos fans to start demanding a team that will be in the last 16 of the CL every year! The only way to do that is to start protesting... Demand that Kokkali will either act professionally and build a team that will be kept as a foundation for a few years, or, sell the club like PAO fans did with Vardinoyianni. Trying to convince yourself that UEFA Cup football is a good thing is definitely not the way forward. Not a defetest attitude at all. The problem lies in management as you said. I'm simply saying that Olympiakos is not deep enough to compete year in and year out. Their youth program is week and there is no direction. They need to have a foundation and go from there. I like the coach. HE is trying to build a foundation. The team got results under lemonis, but there was ugly soccer out there. Give this guy time.Having the fans complain in order for the team to make improvements is not the way to go. THe impatience of the fans is the problem. Kokalis makes knee jerk reactions based on his mood that day and in order for him to appease the fans so they keep on buying his merchandise. Best way to stick it to an owner is to stop caring about the team directly. Don't go to the games, don't buy merchandise. But file mou can't you see that Lemonis was probably sacked to appease the fans? So what if the football was ugly? Chelsea and Liverpool's football is ugly. So is Milan's, and so was Greece's in 2004. Wouldn't you want to replicate this success? We are not Barcelona or Arsenal. We will never win anything by being the most flamboyant football team. We need to develop a good defence with the ability to counter-attack dangerously... we started to acheive this last year. When you have a good foundation, you build on that, you don't dismantle it.Up until January, the whole of Greece was calling Ledesma the "key" to Olympiakos' problems. He then got injured, had a quiet finish to the season, so he gets sold? Cesar was our best defender in the CL... the only player (along with Belluschi) who can hold his head up high after the peformance at Stamford Bridge. And he's replaced with a defender who's nothing more than a decent level SL player? Perhaps these players are replaceable though... the one player that is irreplaceable is Lua Lua. He offered this team so much. The only difference between Lua Lua and a similar style of player in the world's elite teams, i.e. Robbie Keane at Liverpool, Robin Van Persie at Arsenal, etc. is consistency. Keane and RVP will get more goals over the course of the season and that earns them the big moves. In terms of general talent Lua Lua is just as good, and that's why I was saying we should sign him before we were even linked with him. The fact is consistency isn't such an importance factor for Greek teams. It doesn't matter if Lua Lua only gets 10 goals a season because as long as Olympiakos have another consistent goalscorer like Kova, the team will challenge for the title. What we need to make strides are big game players, because Olympiakos' season is determined by that handful of big games... He scored a stunner in the 4-0 win over PAO, he was unbelievable in every game he played in the CL, and the games that he missed were catastrophic = Aek away, Chelsea away, etc. So it is clear that a player like Lua Lua must be kept at all costs. So when it became evident that he would be forced out, the fans should have taken to the streets and protested. Forcing your best players to leave the club isn't how you go forward. Yes the football wasn't consistently brilliant and the team had weaknesses, so what a chairman/manager is supposed to do, is try and plug those weaknesses. Imagine last season's squad, plus an extra 3 or 4 players in problem areas: A centre-back (Tal Ben Haim - Chelsea = A brilliant centre-back who is now at Man City), a left winger (Gutierrez - Mallorca = Explosive and direct, very similar to Lua Lua. He's now at Newcastle but would have been perfect in our counter-attacking team), a goalkeeper (Kovac - who we have signed) and a centre-forward (Diogo - Portuguesa & Sosin - Anorthosis, and the squad would have been sorted. It's the chairman that is the disease in this club, and it is the fans fault for not dealing with that disease. This is a good post dude. I agree with everything and I am still curious why Lua Lua was released. I am a PAO fan but I enjoyed watching him play. So here is the big question: Why was Lua Lua released?? Does anyone know? The only think I have read is that he was late for practice a few times, but really, no good reason has been given. His performance was excellent like you pointed out, and being late for practice is small potatoes. What happened really and Olympiakos took such hard aproach with Lua Lua? Is it a case where management is trying to bring some income so they can bring other players? If so, what's the point? To look good in transfer season?
  10. From the little I understand, I think Halkia (and the others) thought she was "safe". This is what I understand, and if someone knows more I'd love to learn. Athletes take drugs in doses and at specific times in a cycle with the goal to peak during specific games. Most dopping takes place well before the games and increases their capacity to parctice more and to build muscle mass. Athletes try to evade tests by taking "masking" drugs, and by testing when the substances can't be traced any longer (if they can help it). Most doping takes place well before the actual games and that's why they get tested randomly throughout the year. It is not practical to test everyone all year round. This time around the tests seem to have gotten more sophisticated. Tracing drugs that were previously undetectable, tracing them beyond what athletes and their doctors think is possible (time-wise after they stop taking them) seems to have trumped the Greek team that is falling behind it their doping game. It also helps that the IOC has quadrupled their budget and testing frequency in these Olympics. Personally I don't believe that it is humanly possible to break established world records in any sport without drugs today (that includes the swimmers with their space-age suits). Maybe I am a little overly-cynical, but I have a hard time seeing much difference between the Olympics and Pro-Wrestling any more. I am glad they are cracking down.
  11. If you go back, you will find my post when Lemonis was hired. I was in favor of his hire (compared it to Kyrastas and PAO) and seeing Olympiakos this year I thought he did a good job transitioning to all the new and expensive players. He made several mistakes. Firstly, I think he did not have the experience so he did not prepare the team well for playing continuously the whole year. It was evident in the beginning of the season that Olympiakos did not work their endurance during the summer (you'll find a post of mine from last October or so stating my theory - and being ridiculed :) I think this was a huge strategic bludner. The team looks deflated now, and the players can barely finish 90 minutes of game. This includes Galleti who was two speeds above everyone else in the first half of the season, but could barely lift his legs after 60' in the last couple of months or so. Lemonis also made tactical errors, mostly beeing overly cautious in games when he should have not. But all coaches do that. Overall, I thought he did a good job, and I am sure he would have prepared the team differently for next season, but he'll never get the chance. Was it the wrong move to fire him now? I think so. As much as I disliked him (I started disliking him back when he played for Oly next to Anastopoulos) I don't think he deserved to be sucked in such a way. He showed class on several occasions, and I thought he did a good job managing a team of multi-milionares. Kokalis exhibited typical "Greek boss" mentality: "When I get mad, I start swinging". Firing people is always easier than trying to find creative solutions, being patient, and planning for more than a couple of months ahead. On the other hand, this championship is all but gone for Olympiakos. I think Kokalis wanted to shock the system as a last resort. I know many think there are still so many games left and nothing is over (which might be true), but those of us who have been watching Greek football for a long time (Kokalis a little longer than me) can read the signs. The stakes are high. Olympiakos is in danger of playing quilifiers for CL in July, which means they have to prepare for the season in June, and with many players in Austria this summer, the next season is also in jeopardy.
  12. This topic fell to oblivion for a few years, but I think it's always current. Sanmartean plays for Utrecht. He has 14 appearances this season (out of 29 official games Utrecht played up to now), with zero goals. He got injured half way through the season http://www.fc-utrecht.nl/en/wedstrijden/1e_elftal Sibniefski on trial for attempted murder http://www.sportime.gr/football_inside.asp...rticle_id=74076 :o His contribution to the team was marginal at best, but some fans thought he was good because he pulled off an exciting dribble here and there.
  13. Just to follow up and finally exonerate greenteam.gr (well, kind off). It took several un-answered emails, three phone calls from the US, and several from my sister in Greece before my nephew finally got his shirt, and because they lost my order (although they did receive the money a month prior) they gave him a free "name print". He chose Salpigidis :tup: His dad (Oly fan and my best friend) took him in the wearhouse in Nea Ionia to receive it, and since they had charged for shipping and handling they gave him a key ring as well. All is well that ends well. Today I saw him through skype web cam and it looks awesome. He is as happy as can be and I feel like the communists of the old days that felt their mission was to convert another to their belief system :not:
  14. without a shoehorn, i can't confirm anything. That's funny! :D
  15. I finally spoke with someone on the phone (It took four or five calls. They let it ring, then pick it up and hang up to make it stop!) at GreenTeam. They promised they will dig for my order. The lady seemed exaperated and promised to look for my order tomorrow so I don't have to wait on the phone while they are digging through papers. She seemed to imply that they are just way behind in their orders and at one point she mentioned they are just finishing orders from the 14th (January?). Needles to say my nephew did not get the jersey for his b-day last month :evil: Fast Greek the site you mentioned says "pre-order". I think everyone gets their jerseys from the official store but I am not sure. Hopefully someone else here has some more info.
  16. Has anyone bought the centennial jersey?? I ordered one for my nephew in Greece from "GreenTeam", the official PAO online store, and even thought they charged my card a month ago, they still have not delivered the jersey, nor would they answer my emails. :angry:
  17. Beluchi will be of great help in the SL and in Europe. He looks skilled and he sports a mean mullet so you can't go wrong. I am sure every Oly fan would prefer Spyropoulo over Leonardo, but he might be a good fit for Olympiakos. I was listening to Petros Kokalis tirade about "loans" vs "we buy players for the future". Must be the snow ;)
  18. Hey, congratulations on the upcoming addition to the family. There is no better experience in the world. Add a couple of PAO jerseys and you are a close to nirvana as you'll ever get :tup:
  19. xx, this is a great collection! You know which one is my favorite. Did you buy the 2008 jersey yet?
  20. ha, ha, its amazing what you can find in Monastiraki. It's like e-bay in the streets.There is a store on the right from the station after you pass the Library of Adrianos, that has just about every jersey you can imagine. I went there with my nephew and he drove the store owner crazy. He made him pull down more than twenty jerseys before he decided on a Kaka one. Years ago I bought a nice Pao jersey with Warzycha's name on it. I went home and wore it several times before I realized the trifili had four leaves :LOL: I still have it somewhere.
  21. ha, ha, nikosvazelas has a lot of money I see. It's 70 euro each (that's US$100).Athinaie, I ordered mine from greenteam.gr online. I got one for my nephew because his name day is coming up. I will wait to get mine at Monastiraki when I go this May. I hope to get one that does not say "cosmote" in front, even if it's bootleg B)
  22. I am not a collector, but the 2008 jersey is very attractive. I bought one for my nephiew (his dad is my brother in law, a good friend, and gavros, so double the benefit :P ) I like the simplicity and the way the trifili is so prominent. IMO, the best jersey is the one you see Domazos wearing agains Ajax in my avatar. Plain green with a big trifili and nothing else (no ads, no adidas, no decals and galonia).
  23. Only Panathinaikos. I think to Deftero Pontiki said it best when he said "To love a team you must get connected to it somehow..." I grew up with Panathinaikos through thick and thin and I never felt the urge to support another football team (living in Miami in the late eighies I became a Miami Dolphins fan but now I cant even say this out lound any more :)
  24. I can't wait to hear the announcers: " Kriszxtstoveggg, gives the ball to Lua Lua, Lua Lua, Lua Lua... Lua Lua panta, gives the ball to Olle Olle, Olle Olle, Olle Olle, ... back to Lua Lua, the one-two, Olle Olle, Lua Lua, Olle Olle, Golleeeee Golleeeeee!!!!" :LOL: ( http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?Conte...tenutoId=507251 )
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