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Greece vs Belgium (3 September 2017- World Cup Qualifier- Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus)


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with Naingollan - Witsel and Hazard out 4-5 goals might seem too many against a solid defence. Even losing with a small difference might make the difference. Bosnians dont score much in this campaign either, so making sure the difference is forced through goals against could help us fight for the 2nd spot in tie.

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1 hour ago, J1078 said:

if he is still injured like they're saying even if he wants to play his club team wont allow it. We need a miracle to somehow get a draw in order to keep 2nd place... It doesn't look good.

a draw is an excellent result, as it means that for Bosnia to go through us in points, have to play for the win against Belgium. Bosnia not parking the bus with this defence is a 90% defeat secured.

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Guys after yesterdays gutless performance if KPaps is healthy SKIBBE has no choice but to play 3 in the back and squeeze the life out of Lukaku. Sokratis Manolas Kyriako are 3 of our top 7 players THEY must all be on the pitch!!

I have zero confidence in Skibbe..he looked like a refreshing change..we were pressing alot more than usual before yesterdays game HAS the EPO reared its ugly head again Retsos (out of position) Tziolis Tzavellas Zeca WHAT is happening here!! Play Lykogiannis RB yes I know he is Lfooted TORO played lb whats the difference he is a proper wingback play Stafy over Tzavellas OK he has no matchplay yet THEN WTF did he sub him on. Play Bouchlakis Samari or Taxi over the useless Zeca Tziolis combo. 

If on Sunday we scough a beating Skibbe should be sacked ASAP and the EPO must pay as well.

 

...........Karnezis..........

....Sokrati Kpap Manolas

Lyko Taxi Samris Stafy

......Fortoun Bouchalaki..

..........Donis.............If Mitro is healthy 2nd half sub!! That hammie not ready or he would have played Thursday

Young attacking players this is what is required in todays game TOUCHLINE to TOUCHLINE animals not Colonais or Cones

Again I have zero confidence in this cach setting up his team to go for it 0-0 mentalty

THIS group better SHOW UP

Edited by OFI-mtl
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i don't see how we're going to win this one but playing on the counters suits us better. we should better win tomorrow to lock the second place and minimize any chance we have to end up as a worse runner up which is quite possible if we lose or even draw vs belgium..somehow we kicked our chance away by drawing estonia at home, congrats.

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Right now Bosnia is in a much better positions even though they're 1 point behind. Belgium hasn't officially clinched first yet so they will come out and play there ass off to get the win and stamp there ticket to the World Cup.. once they do that then they will rest there starters and tinker with there line up and try some bench players against Bosnia which will give Bosnia who will be hungry a good opportunity to pull off a win.. Also now that Cyprus is back in they will play us as hard as possible.. Skibbe and our players royally screwed us with that draw.

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Maybe, somehow, hopefully the team squeaks out a draw.  

I agree with most.  Belgium will look to pick up the 6 points this NT window and go back to their clubs qualified.  

We we can somehow luck out the draw at least they play Bosnia tough.  Personally see a 2 - 0 loss but we are tough to break down so draw is a possibility. 

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I hope the guys can find a way to squeeze out a win! In Belgium we were minutes away from a famous win, Belgium will obviously not sit back like Estonia so there less then stellar backs can be exposed as we saw on Mitroglou's goal there. I just hope Skibbe doesn't screw up the starting 11.

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I don't believe Donis would be as affective in the number 9 strikers position as he is when used in the 2nd forward/winger roll similar to what Karelis or Salpingidis used to play. Greece have to be very tight defensively at the back & in the midfield & hope for a goal or two by I don't whom if Mitroglou is out. Stafylidis cracker from a distance because I reckon Kyriakos Pap would have more or a chance scoring than Vellios or Diamantakos at the moment if he was given the strikers duty. One positive for Greece is that Belgium only know one way to play & that is direct & attack, attack, attack which means at some stage(s) Greece will get chances to score on the counter attack.

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Koutroumbis has been called into the squad as backup, for Retsos and K Pap who are both nursing injuries. Mitroglou will be on the bench and Diamantakos will be a starter.

http://www.sport-fm.gr/article/podosfairo/ektaktws-stin-ethniki-o-koutroumpis/3455768

http://www.sport-fm.gr/article/podosfairo/oi-skepseis-tou-skimpe-gia-mitroglou/3455763

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3 hours ago, Ellada2004 said:

Mitroglou at 50% is more effective than Diamantakos. 

you mean 500%.

18 hours ago, J1078 said:

Right now Bosnia is in a much better positions even though they're 1 point behind. Belgium hasn't officially clinched first yet so they will come out and play there ass off to get the win and stamp there ticket to the World Cup.. once they do that then they will rest there starters and tinker with there line up and try some bench players against Bosnia which will give Bosnia who will be hungry a good opportunity to pull off a win.. Also now that Cyprus is back in they will play us as hard as possible.. Skibbe and our players royally screwed us with that draw.

They are two points behind, which means that 
we lose tomorrow to Belgium - they win Gibraltar , they go up by 1 point
we win Cyprus - They draw Belgium , we go up by 2 points

last matchday  we win Gibraltar - Bosnia wins Estonia , we remain 2nd by 2 points.
, so honestly the match with cyprus seems more crucial than the Belgium one, since even if they win Belgium, as long as we win Cyprus we are mathematically even and that's when the goal factors kicks in. 

Problem is that, if they win Belgium and we lose to it, it means they wont have many goals conceded to Belgium, while in the meanwhile we ll have conceded a few, so it''s a done deal. I would be happy with this NT after so many of its failures to finish 2nd , no matter if we qualify via play-offs or not, considering the possible opponents, but finishing 3rd equal points with the second is not a bad result either, considering how hard this group was (best Pot 5 team by far in Cyprus, One of the best Pot 1 teams and we still managed a draw with them , undefeated by 2nd pot good attacking team Bosnia.

Sadly, if we won on Thursday we would be talking about success only, with a locked play off spot. Right now, we have to consider the possibility of failure.




 

As for Skibbe. In my opinion he is doing a good work. The fact that one bad match (which we didnt even lose)might cost us a top 2 finishing shows the difficulty level of the Group.Tziolis needs to be called up. Our only experiecned player 10+ years with NT. Doesnt have to be fielded though. 

In my opinion to the strikers, as people ask why he is calling Diamantakos and Vellios. Vellios is a good striker. Just off form not played for a month and didnt play for over 4 months a competitive match, just friendlies. He wasnt in sync with the AMFs on thursday. He doesnt know how to play with them, which begs the qustion what the hell is happening during training? He is always putting his first line up against the back ups? They couldnt find Vellios anywhere with their crosses. Diamantakos. I am pretty sure once a familiar yet forgotten face comes back will become a nobody, until he decides to step up his career and try harder. Everyone has forgotten that our second striker in the que is injued for almost a year, Karelis. I am pretty sure that when we were counting the losses for last match we forgot to count him in. It's another thing to miss your first striker, but having a decent enough striker (not as good yet but still - decent for a decent Europa League team) to replace him, and another thing to miss both of them.

And As I posted earlier a couple of days. Most of the matches in early september this team can't play. Draws with Georgia, barely winning liechtenstein at 80 and such. They didnt happen under Skibbe, but Rehaggel and Santos. A re we gonna call these coaches flops as well? I honestly dare you.

The only mistake that in my opinion did in Thursday was taking the match lightly. In every interview he said that he is not even thinking about Belgium yet. First we gota do what we gotta do against Estonia. Yet it seemed to me, apart from our injured players Mitroglou, Karelis , Torosidis and suspended Sokratis, he rested Samaris, Tachtsidis, Stafylidis for Belgium match. Excluding (the striker of aek who i forgot his name and he plays as a LW for the ethniki-insert name here- lol i literally forgot i swear and not bothered to look it up, thats how bad he is) from the Belgium line up we were missing a total of 6 key players. I believe he rested them for Belgium because they re not in form and 2 matches in 4 days would probably tire them too much to product against Belgium.I kinda understood it when he brought Stafylidis in after 60. One of our key players  in the campaign was benched. We ve seen him in 3 positions so far in this campaign, but not a starter only when Holebas was here.

 On the one hand, this was unacceptable. Because as he was saying in his interviews he should only focus on THAT match. But who tells us that in such a high pressure defense we would score with them as well? Most possibly yes, but Im not sure anyone could deliver in this period. On the other hand. consider the fact that we fielded an all attack scheme, with our best players and still didnt take the 3point. Skibbe relieves the pressure from him since he did nothing wrong, then Belgium match comes. Key players already tired since they had a 90' match a few days ago, and the previous full match they had was 81 days ago. We d literally go against Belgium with our hands down. 

Is this possibility possible?(pun intended) I cant be sure. I am not a coach, I am not a physio, I have never attended professional trainings after summer breaks. But, how the f*ck can you be so sure it is not? According to this theory however, a Gianniotas would be more useful than Mantalos on the wing vs Estonia, since he is a bench player either way, but again Skibbe preffered a player with matches before, and crucial ones for CL/EL.

My last words for Skibbe, so far in this campaign are: Undefeated and 2 points safe for 2nd place, first bad result the team takes, how fast are we to judge him, when he was praised after Belgium, only a few months ago. The only match the team seemed lost was vs Bosnia at home.

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We need to find away to just get a playoff spot because we can match up well with everyone, Ireland, Slovakia, NI, Ukraine. Portugal would likely be the most difficult opposition but we have a great record vs them as we all know. If we have all our players available and the RIGHT lineup we could match up vs Italy after there pathetic display today they have no attacking options and even there defending looked suspect, but Spain & especially Isco just carved them up today.

 

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1 hour ago, Ellada2004 said:

We need to find away to just get a playoff spot because we can match up well with everyone, Ireland, Slovakia, NI, Ukraine. Portugal would likely be the most difficult opposition but we have a great record vs them as we all know. If we have all our players available and the RIGHT lineup we could match up vs Italy after there pathetic display today they have no attacking options and even there defending looked suspect, but Spain & especially Isco just carved them up today.

 

 

As I see it  the play off spots will be

Sweden

Switzerland

N.I. 

Italy

Wales/Serbia/Ireland 

Montenegro

Slovakia

Greece

Iceland/Ukraine/Croatia/Ukraine

apart from Switzerland and Italy everything else is quite managable. Croatia has low chances of finishing second imo and so has Serbia , who are the best teams in Groups taht still are too close to decide.

 

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