Youth Academies in Greece

[Ellasforever]

Hello everyone!

First off, while lurking here for years I finally got around to registering and am looking forward to discussing football with all of you informed and passionate fellow fans of our ethniki. I don't have a particular club that I support, I generally follow Greek teams as a collective whole and wish them to do well against any non-Greek teams. This may stem from growing up amongst many passionate non-Greek football fans, mostly Italians, Portuguese, Spanish and Argentinians. When faced with this collective group, you don't exactly regal in the greatness of our clubs that have never won a major trophy, you just yearn for a Greek team to do well and one day be a champion!

I guess this is what leads me to my question. Watching almost all the games of as many of the participants of the last few major tournaments that I am able to (World/Euro/Copa America), and usually among fans of many of those teams playing, there is something that seems painfully obvious to me (and them), namely we just don't seem to have the same skill level as some of the more quality teams in the world. I mean your basic skills: passing (not as imaginative, not as crisp on delivery or on first touch), shooting (not as powerful or as accurate), dribbling (no demonstration of ability to take on defenders or create chances from individual merit), offensive tactical nous and so on.

Now, we can debate on whether the above is accurate, although I for one and ALL neutrals I know agree on it (although we do get high marks for discipline, effort, and defensive spirit for the most part), let's agree that perhaps even if it is not as stark as I say, that at least we may say that we are not exactly the most offensively gifted side out there.

So, my thoughts are this has to do with the "basics" and how we train our youth in Greece, so I am wondering who is familiar with the academy system there and the quality of the player development? I am sure we don't compare to the Ajax Academy or La Masia, Sporting Lisbon, and so and so forth, but do we have quality academies in Greece and how do they scout and nurture their talent? Anybody happen to know?

[js1000]

our youth sides at national level U19s U21s etc seem to do ok, the reason i believe they don't go on to develop is because they don't get playing time for their respective teams. k papadopoulos wasn't deemed good enough for olympiakos but has become an accomplished player since his move to schalke. Of our U19s who reached the final of the EURO U19s in 2007 and narrowly lost to spain only papastathopoulos, pliatsikas, ninis(because they were given playing time at aek/pao) and mitroglou have gone on to play for greece, and mitroglou despite banging them in for Atromitos is deemed not good enough for olympiakos. Dimoutsos for all his promise wasn't trusted by panathinaikos after a good showing in the same tournament. until greek clubs start trusting their young players young talent simply won't develop

[Clover22]

Yeah js1000 made some good points the thing is why are they not being played. Ninis was coming off the bench at PAO for a while when he proved he was ready. There are lots of talented players that are undervalued and get overlooked in Greece. Theodoridis, Pappas, and Agritis are a few. These are guys that have good dribbling and passing skills. What you need to do is put the right guys together; find the chemistry. Like right now Santos can start Ninis, Fetfa, and Fortounis in midfield. These should ALWAYS be your starting players, and you would see a good passing game. But instead he insisted on Karagounis and Katsouranis: 2 guys who were great in 2004 and worked for that system but are past it now. So if you play these 2 guys like they're the engine of the team, people look at that and go, "oh, Greece can't produce quality players, they can't string more than 2 passes together, blah blah blah. Kats and Kara are not creative players; they never were.

Also there is corruption and favoritism in Greek football. I can't prove who or what or how much but it is there. Keep that in mind when you see glaringly obvious talent being kept on the bench.