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Greece vs Estonia (31 August 2017- World Cup Qualifier- Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus)


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In Friday’s qualifier against Bosnia, Greece international Sokratis Papastathopoulos picked up a yellow card in the first half (foul on Dzeko) and will be suspended for Greece’s next qualifier again Estonia. Greece will host Estonia at the Karaiskakis stadium on August 31st for matchday seven of World Cup qualifying. Although Papastathopoulos’ absence is a big blow to the Greek defense, good news is that Kyriakos Papadopoulos will return to the team after serving a two-game suspension for his straight red card in November’s fixture against Bosnia. Papadopoulos will likely replace Sokratis in Greece’s backline for the fixture against Estonia. With Sokratis set to serve his suspension against Estonia, he will be available for Greece's important game against Belgium four days later.

Edited by Greekaroos
Just a correction.
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Karnezis

Torosidis, Manolas, Papadopoulos, Stafylidis

Samaris, Tachtsidis/Zeca

Mantalos Fortounis Donis

Mitroglou

 

The Estonian team will have 2 of their starters suspended. Yesterday they beat a very, very bad Latvian side (Andorra and Faroe Islands are ahead of them in their group, actually they are in the last place) 1-2 in a friendly game. Prediction: 2 or 3-0 victory for Greece 

 

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22 hours ago, Boxou said:

Karnezis

Torosidis, Manolas, Papadopoulos, Stafylidis

Samaris, Tachtsidis/Zeca

Mantalos Fortounis Donis

Mitroglou

 

The Estonian team will have 2 of their starters suspended. Yesterday they beat a very, very bad Latvian side (Andorra and Faroe Islands are ahead of them in their group, actually they are in the last place) 1-2 in a friendly game. Prediction: 2 or 3-0 victory for Greece 

 

 

I believe Zeca does not help much in the offensive part of the game. Apart from his solid passing his vision and his through/smart balls that arethe advantage when you outclass an opponent (like Greece does to the Estonian NT), are nothing very interesting. Statswise he is a very defensive based mid, and I doubt he will be needed vs Estonia.

My go is Samaris - Tachtsidis. I believe Skibbe can experiment on the wings, but I really think Donis will only be used as a sub, and he ll go with Tzavellas FullBack and Stafylidis Winger. Saddly, Paok didn't make it to the Champions League playoff spot, as I believe that Pelkas could actually have some play time there and possibly give Skibbe a few reasons to call him. Looks like his call up is going to wait.

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Im honestly not worried about Belgium. I am pretty sure Bosnia will drop oints to Cyprus and possibly Estonia.

Talinn proved hard both for Greece and Belgium. Plus the fact that Estonia is regaining confidence as they doing well, I believe in their Home their fans will lust for an upset. 

 

Something that I really wanna see in the upcomming Home matches is the people. Everyone stopped going to the Stadium during the 2016 Euro Campaign. I really hope the people, after such a performance, and the απόδοση ψυχής of the players,  are interested in supporting the team again and mkaing Karaiskakislook like this: 

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Id like to see this Line up

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Kapino- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Torosidis- - Manolas - - Sokratis - - Stafylidis
- - - - - - - - - - -Samaris - - - - ??? - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -Mantalos - - - - - -Fortounis- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Donis- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Mitroglou - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

I think the whole wingers thing doesn't suit us much. Maybe Skibbe can try a 4-4-2 using Donis a bit behind Mitroglou. He has the technical ability to keep ball. Not sure if that can happen in such an important match however, as Estonia seem to have stepped up their game.


??? Possibilities I guess are Maniatis/Zeca/Tachtsidis/Siopis/even Bouchalakis if he keeps up the good performances and nonstop playing time in the Championship. I think this season is hard as most players haven't gotten into regular season physical, so players with games under their feet might upgrade the team.
The Estonian team is mostly consisted of players in Estonian and Norwegian Leagues. They re ongoing in the summer, which is a positive thing for them.

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Maniatis and especially Bouchalakis shouldn't be mentioned when it comes to nt. One is playing for a mid-table side in Turkey and the other one in english b division..Would rather see Kourmpelis or Siopis if one of Samaris, Tachtsidis or Zeca are out. Also Sokratis is suspended which means we'll see one of Retsos or Papadopoulos playing along with Manolas.My guess as I have said previously.

 

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Really bro? Greek A side is considered higher than Championship ? Why because it is A? 
Check the contracts in Championship. Bouchalakis price is 800,000. And he is not even playing for a BIG TEAM of Championship. 

Do you understand that mid-table teams in Greece have contracts of 50,000 / year?
Championship is not a bit better than Greek SL it's miles away. 
English Premier League
Spanish La Liga
Bundesliga
Serie A
Ligue 1
these  5 are possibly the best championships right now. 


Eredivisie
Portugal Liga NOS
Russian Premier League
Championship
Turkish Ligue 1

these other 5 are also very good and currently competitive championships. 

Anything else after that is literally nothing. No Greece. Not at all.

Belgium is trying to upgrade their championship but I doubt we ll see anything soon.

Edited by Rockafeller Skank
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whatever you say, i'm sure NONE in this forum would like to see players in b divisions like diamantakos, gianniotas, vellios and bouchalakis starting for the nt. in fact they're THAT good that they couldn't cut in the almight greek league: gianniotas never played for olympiakos, vellios was good for a relegation iraklis side, bouchalakis and diamantakos were consistently warming the bench in olympiakos..if they are that good why they couldn't crack into olympiakos rotation which in a league 15 times worse than championship.

ps. the argument with the salaries barely makes sense..

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                     Karnezis

Retsos Manolas Kyriakos Stafylidis

                   Samaris Zeca

Gianniotas     Fortounis.   Donis

                         Mitroglou

Sub: Mantalos, Kourbelis, Karelis

The reason why we should use this line up is because it gives a chance to cap Retsos as he is wanted by South Africa. Also to give Torosidis a rest. Papadopoulos comes in for the suspended Sokratis. Samaris and Zeca combo will be used so they can start understanding each other. Gianniotas in place for Mantalos. Donis should get the start. I was going to put Karelis upfront but we need to win this match so Mitroglou starts.

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18 hours ago, Boxou said:

whatever you say, i'm sure NONE in this forum would like to see players in b divisions like diamantakos, gianniotas, vellios and bouchalakis starting for the nt. in fact they're THAT good that they couldn't cut in the almight greek league: gianniotas never played for olympiakos, vellios was good for a relegation iraklis side, bouchalakis and diamantakos were consistently warming the bench in olympiakos..if they are that good why they couldn't crack into olympiakos rotation which in a league 15 times worse than championship.

ps. the argument with the salaries barely makes sense..

Not really, your price is as good as you are so the salary kinda does. 
Bouchalakis is absolutely underrated for not getting a start even at some of the worst seasons of Olympiakos , but he is not as good as people have started praising him after two goals. Maybe he is and I dont know but what stands is that his true worth can't be defined from two good games he had.

 

Olympiakos last season had bad planning. Do you really think Elyounoussi , who was brought for a starter was anything better than Gianniotas? Im not saying Gianniotas is a top class player but the fact that he was not given a chance and Elyounoussi was, makes it look like he is totally bad. For some reason though, Gianniotas was a fine STARTER for a team that beat us twice in the Groupstage and made it one round more than us in the Europa League, even knocking Bilbao and Rosenborg out, two teams that are much better than what Olympiakos has faced so far in his Campaign and Friendlies. The fact that a coach does not rate him , does not make him anything close to a bad player.

I agree with you about Diamantakos. B  division of Germany is nothing significant to be noticed , since we have players like Mitroglou , Karelis, Donis, Vellios I don't see how Diamantakos can be of any usage.
Also the Vellios argument you mentioned is the one that doesnt make any sense. He was good for a  bad Greek side Iraklis? Bro he was scoring goals vs big teams with a relegation tier team. If you knew what you were talking about you wouldn't mention this. Most of his goals were literally solo efforts. He was dragging the team away from relegation, he wasn't playing for it.AEK and PAO and OLY actually asked for him (well technically Olympiakos got him in a way - since Nott is owned by Marinakis) but guess what, he chose a B division team over them. Seems weird doesn't it?

1 hour ago, Dean97 said:

                     Karnezis

Retsos Manolas Kyriakos Stafylidis

                   Samaris Zeca

Gianniotas     Fortounis.   Donis

                         Mitroglou

Sub: Mantalos, Kourbelis, Karelis

The reason why we should use this line up is because it gives a chance to cap Retsos as he is wanted by South Africa. Also to give Torosidis a rest. Papadopoulos comes in for the suspended Sokratis. Samaris and Zeca combo will be used so they can start understanding each other. Gianniotas in place for Mantalos. Donis should get the start. I was going to put Karelis upfront but we need to win this match so Mitroglou starts.

You re giving no Credit to Estonia. They re having a momentum. I know it is our home stadium but I wouldn't take them off so lightly. Also a very good appearance 4 days before we field Belgium would also give some psychological Benefit to our players. I wouldn't use a midfield that hasn't played together, Nor would I use Gianniotas and Retsos. 

Torostidis is still too much of a rely for this team on the Right and Mantalos sometimes can bring energy that Fortounis lacks

Kyriakos I don't think we ll have much of a problem against Estonia. I don't expect them to score more than once at their best, with or without Sokratis.Donis definately needs to start as he seemed a few levels higher than everyone who has been tried in that position. Even Stafylidis, whom I was praising as a Winger when played there, seemed amateur in front of him. He created two chances vs Bosnians when our whole team was settling for the draw.

Edited by Rockafeller Skank
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Greece lost to the Faroe Islands in recent times. They are in no position to view any team lightly.

That said I think you'll see a team manufacture a good win. 2-0 or 3-1 comes to mind. I'd prefer the shutout over the extra goal as it sends a message to Belgium that goals will be hard to come by in Athens.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Dean97 said:

                     Karnezis

Retsos Manolas Kyriakos Stafylidis

                   Samaris Zeca

Gianniotas     Fortounis.   Donis

                         Mitroglou

torosidis over retsos, tachtsidis over zeca and mantalos over gianniotas. 

 

3 hours ago, Dean97 said:

 

 

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Say what you want but if this team starts looking ahead to the Belgium game then they will get upset by Estonia. This is a game where we should definitely win but if we play loose defensively and only focus on offence we have the potential to give up a goal. This is the reason we lost to the garbage teams in the euro..  If we go playing organized and move the ball around then we shouldn't have a problem. 

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I don't think they re gonna look ahead to the Belgium game.

We already are in an advantage over Bosnians for second spot. I doubt they can take a result against them. 9 points will most possibly be enough. I expect Bosnia maybe dropping poins to Talinn or Cyprus as well. They seem disinterested. Apart from that, Belgium is currently ranked 9th in the World Rankings. Meaning that with Russia hosts and 7 other teams, they are left outside the top seeds, which they most possibly want. So im pretty sure they re gonna go for wins in both matches, to hunt for top seed. Even the minnows are playing for positive results as that might mean they get drawn with easier teams on next qualifications.

Edited by Rockafeller Skank
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9 hours ago, Boxou said:

torosidis over retsos, tachtsidis over zeca and mantalos over gianniotas. 

 

 

Tachtsidis is injured still. Mantalos should sit out for this one. Gianniotas is a true winger and has a lot of energy. He also has better touches than Mantalos. Retsos starting or not needs to be capped. 

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he's currently injured but there's a chance he's ready in tuesday for olympiakos game so by 31st he should able to start. also i don't like gianniotas, i don't get what people see and rate him that highly, mantalos over him any day because he's better in his defensive tasks and a more creative player. the fact that a mid-table spanish team is second division is interested in him says a lot..hope olympiakos doesn't unload him to them. 

and don't worry about retsos, there's no way he's going to pick south africa over greece. that news were up about a month ago, basically their nt's coach just came in greece to talk to him and that's it, if he was going to pick south africa we'd already know that..also if you don't mind take a look at his instagram, half of his photos are from his games with youth nts which speaks volumes about that.

 

 

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what we need to finish first in the 4 remaining games:

1) greece-estonia = greece win

cyprus-bih = draw

(belgium comfortably beats gibraltar)

 

2) greece-belgium = greece win

(bosnia gets an easy victory against gibraltar)

 

3)cyrpus-greece = greece wins (possibly cyprus lays down for that)

bosnia-belgium = draw or bih win, both results are in favor of us 

 

4) greece wins over gibraltar 

 

final standings

greece 24

belgium 22 or 23 (depends on whether they lose or draw bosnia)

bosnia 3rd, etc. 

 

we're lucky we play belgium first to know what to expect from their game against bosnia. 

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