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Road To Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup


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4 4 2 has always been the tried and true. Skibbe probably will defend and counter attack as 4 2 3 1 and in general attack turn into a 4 3 3. Whatever system works I say. The most difficult decision is LW. If Fortounis is in the middle, stuffed if I know who goes to the left.. Bakasetas plays off both feet I suppose.

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Tantra you Hellene, with the diamond, Cholevas/Holebas/Holevas-even, would play in the diamond, Toro looked very sharp here in Oztralia. Stafy can be LB and he is young. The wider midfielders would spread right out so the fullbacks don't have to run like box 2 box mids. It could possibly work.

Edited by ausgreek
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A coach actually reporting some actual work results ( a line up not working) , instead of saying "we are currently working on that" "we are expecting that and that and that" is something new. Maybe Skibbe is a legit guy. As I said earlier. No need for a master tactician in NT level, just someone to unite the lads and form a team that can play ball with confidence.

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le Skibbe has to entrust Samaris as a deep lying mid, he is an elder statesman now, some success at the world cup too, or he goes permanently to 8, or goes out of the team. Need Fortounis  in the 10 position. He is our go guy, our best player. Good to know there is Mantalos there as well to keep pressing later in matches. 

The team shows structure but need Alot more consistency at finishing in front on the scoreboard. Hope they go back to back after winning in Melb, and defeat Ned.

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When it comes down to our last friendly against Netherlands if Skibbe does more tinkering and doesn't pick a line up that will replicate our line up at the WQ then he's truly an idiot and I will be so pissed off. As it stands now we are all still kind of scratching our heads to the potential line up and formation that skibbe wants to go with and we have imo wasted a lot of friendlies instead of trying to rebuild chemistry with the players we want to field at the WQ.

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So....here we are reading, analyzing, posting, and hoping for a successful WC Qualifying campaign later in the fall.

The weather is nice outside (for those of us situated in countries where it is summertime), the EURO is going on, chicks are waiting to be banged, and so much more, YET, we are all here reading, analyzing, posting.....

 

"What's your point?", you may ask.

 

Well, my point is that, right now, I can almost guarantee that not one Greek player of our beloved National Team is thinking about WC Qualifying and what THEY have to bring to the table to get results this time. Most of them are on the Greek islands partying or at the bouzoukia getting hammered. I am not saying that they do not deserve to have fun just like any other guy out there. I would be a hypocrite if I was. However, what I am getting at is that if players do not have a feeling "anger" inside of them after being embarrassed during the EURO qualifiers, then they are doomed. If the, "we will show the world that the last qualifying campaign was an absolute sh1t-show of a fluke" does not resonate in them, then they are doomed. Lastly, if they do not have, at the very least, an ounce of FILOTIMO which will make them all feel, deep down, that, this time, they owe more to themselves, the fans, and to the blue and white flag of our beloved Hellas, then they (and we) are doomed.

 

Can any of you realistically see a player like Buffon of Italy who yells his heart out with pride each and every time his anthem plays and who stayed with Juventus out of loyalty when they got relegated when he so easily could have gone to any top team in Europe, ever have an "I don't give a sh1t attitude?". Neither can I.

 

That's the attitude each and every player on Hellas needs to have and bring to each game.

 

Filotimo. Pride. HELLAS!

Edited by AEK RE GAMOTO
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Aek re Gamoto-gamoto, u must bang like a dunni door in a cyclone re. Analizing and posting gives me that orgasmic feeling. I'm sure I'm talking for most here, even the mauler, formely from the inner west of Sydney. Lets hope the next team picked will be the one that plays in the WCQ. If this happens, I'm going to hit my my peak.

The players are enjoying their off season, I'm sure they are as patriotic as other countries when the matches are on. I know Buffoon is like this, I would think our guys are as well in reality.

Next time you find a babe, ask her if she has a thia  and set me up, I'll talk to her talk the ethnikoi na poume.

Edited by ausgreek
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Guys lets be honest. The team is crap. No heart, no strategy even with talents like fortounis and mantalos coming through and anchors like Sokratis at the back.

We had an incredible decade but there's a natural ebb and flow to the production of quality players. We underestimated how much organization and passion guys like karagounis brought to the team.

And Santos failed spectacularly to bring new blood through. He was very much an in-the-moment coach, which is understandable I guess.

But this is really EPO's fault. They've failed to develop our youth system completely, screwed up with the coaches, F***ed the league ten ways from Sunday.

We have no personalities in this team, no one who will take the ball and make something happen through sheer force of will. And despite our talent at the back, our marking and organization has become garbage. No concentration. I have no optimism for this team at all, which is hard after believing anything was possible since 2004.

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Like to think Hellas are coming out of a rebuilding phase after a crap euro qualification attempt.

They showed they can high press as a team efficiently in Melbourne. They had too many players injured or not playing by they time they played their first game against Romania, 2 years ago.  Karagounis retired also, who engineered most things. They fell in a heap. To think Greece were a whisker away from the last 8 of the world cup 2 years ago, where Keylor Navas was superhuman for a period of 100 mins, he even surprised himself. 

 

Lets see the first two qualifiers to gauge if they came out of rebuilding. I'm backing them in.

Edited by ausgreek
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Seems our first match, vs Gibraltar, will be held in a neutral venue (Portugal). One of the 2004 stadiums. I change my mind, now I think we can beat them. Fierce.

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I don't understand the hate that Santos is getting. I to would take him over any coach we've had over the last two years, the one thing Santos was good for was getting the team to play to its strengths even though a lot of people thought it was to "boring" I also think Even with the lose of some of our veterans Santos would have build in our world cup success and we would have qualified for the euros. Even though I didn't agree with everything he did he still new how to get this team to suffocate opponents defensively and play inspired football. Those 3-1 games we lost to Irleand or the loss to Finland and the FI at worst would have been a draw in my opinion. I think everything hit this team like a ton of bricks Karagounis retiring then Samaras no longer on the team, Santos leaving, all these things that occurred left the team lost with no one to lead or inspire. To many changes all at once F***ED this team.

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Santos persisted with Karagounis and Katsouranis so, Tziolis may well of been made captain before Salpingitis. We will never know.

Edited by ausgreek
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Santos is a results based orientated coach which IMO is perfect for international football. His philosophy is to make his teams hard to beat irrespective of game style. He would have have found a way to get us to this tournament I have no doubt about that. Yes his 3 draws in the group stage looked terrible on paper but with the new format 3 points and a 0 Gd is all you need to get through, as I said he finds a way.

The only thing that annoys me is dumping ranieri so quickly, obviously he looks a million bucks now after what he did at Leicester, but having him go through a failed qualifying campaign would have given him enough time to see how to build this team in a new qualifying campaign, with skibbe we are sort of back at square one late 2014 as the games he has coached have basically been dead rubbers.

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I don't think there was a a chance Ranieri would have stayed had we not qualified...

 

Ranieri is no the type of manager that would stay coaching greece beyond a failure....to then rebuild....he would not be your 4-6 years coach..

 

skibbe is more suited to this task...

 

i would have been very worried if skibbe took over now...

 

I think him being in the job since late last year and seeing us play various opposition has helped immensely..

 

What skibbe/ranieri/santos can not do is how well Belgium play v Ethniki in March 2017.....the sheer gulf in ability and talent is enormous..

 

One can argue a good coach can plan for this and prepare us accordingly..yes..in theory..it will be a long night...

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You trying to point out we need to prepare for Belgium now ? No bro, realistic aim is 2nd spot, we aim to winning all other matches until then , while preparing for that much "on our free time".

 

 if one is to be judged a good coach its about getting results v the big teams..

 

of course we are not preparing for Belgium from now...but a good coach will have us ready for match day.

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I also don't understand the sudden love for Santos from some on this board. Go back and watch our games in qualifying and major tournaments under him and you'll see the truth: horrific, dysfunctional, donkey-ball (see how Russia played during Euro 2016 to get a good estimate of this). Now admittedly, we had a few good games under him (Romania playoff, Ivory Coast WC come to mind) but that was always the exception rather than the rule. Did we grind out results? Sure; but eking out 1-0 wins by the skin-of-our-teeth against nothing teams was never going to be sustainable going forward; especially as the rest of Europe is getting better. Some will say that he did what he could with the personnel at his disposal. To that I say sure, if that personnel includes Kats, Kara, and Tziolis. I believe we have (and had at the time) better, and in my humble opinion Santos' biggest crime was not blooding the younger generation in sooner. Now we're left to reap what he's sown.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not laying all of the blame for the current debacle at his feet. The players should be ashamed of themselves for their abject lack of professionalism and shockingly poor form. EPO should be ashamed of themselves for their terrible planning and mismanagement (and corruption but that goes without saying). 

 

As for Santos, I congratulate him on his results with Portugal but I still contend that they've been lucky. They did not play well during the group stage and they've been lucky to have a (relatively) easy path to the final. 

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there's no luck here. Croatia beat Spain the defending champs, which Portugal beat. Wales beat Belgium a heavy favour to win the whole thing. Portugal basically beat Belgium and Spain by beating the people who beat them in a way.

 

It depends on your perspective, but their success is not mostly because of luck. It's because Santos is one of the best international managers, RONALDO, a golden generation, and chemistry.

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While the perception is that Santos did not "develop" talent, we have to remember that is not his job.  That is the job of the club teams and EPO.  My biggest grip with him was that he played Katsouranis and Karagounis regardless of form. Their leadership though is what he valued and it showed.  Whether you like him or not, he did go 17 games without a loss (regardless of whom we played) and will go down as the 1st or 2nd best manager in Greece's history.

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I am neither sentimental for Santos nor envious of Portugal. Good luck to them but Santos had his time as Greece coach and he was equally part frustrating and fortunate as well to have had on paper, a seemingly decent run.

Although I preferred Santos to Otto's reign post Euro 2004, I still don't understand the yearning for him.

He was dire at Euro 2012. How he picked Chalkias to be his starting keeper let alone even having him in the squad was ridiculous. Picking Avraam as his starting central defender was equally self-sabotaging when you consider the season that Kyriakos Papa had. Thankfully through luck (as in injury) both of these players had little influence and Santos's hand was forced. However against Germany when the whole world was watching he was so frustratingly conservative that he again sabotaged us.

OK, he overachieved if you compare him with Otto post 2004, but that just shows how much Rehhagel had seriously lost the plot post Euro 2004 and was embarrassing for Greece.

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