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Nations League - Game #5 - Greece V. Finland (Olympic Stadium, Athens) - November 15, 2018


Argy

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10 hours ago, Argy said:

I concede that there is importance to finishing second, but you really didn't explain the context of your statement. Second place teams will be ranked and in line to replace a group winner for the playoffs, if said winner were to already qualify via the separate EURO qualification campaign. Which means, if Greece were to finish second place and they are the highest ranked second place team based on record, they'd be first in line to step in and have a shot at qualification if one of the 4 group winners had already qualified.

As it stands, Greece is the second ranked 2nd place team behind Bulgaria by goal differential, but every group looks like it will come down to the brink and things will likely look a lot different after this weekend.

I read this article from Agona Sports, so if you believe I am wrong, blame it on those guys. 

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ideally we start donis on the left and lazaros on the right. 

then fetfa to sub off lazaros since he's gassed.

masouras also looks impressive and has scored goals against the big 4 in on season as a winger.

let's play players in their natural position. being a good player is largely a matter of instinct. if they spend years domisticating themselves at a certain part of the pitch it's way too hard to just play a different position for such make/break games. 

I would rather have a low level winger like Gianniotas playing his natural position than Stafylidis as a lw. After seeing what we saw past 2 years.

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Stop crying over some pathetic average for League C level wingers.

2 years ago it was Gianniotas, 4 years ago it was Fetfatzidis, now it is Lazaros.

None of them are game changers none of them can open defences (Lazaros is mostly a second striker imho at his current state).

If we scored twice vs Finland we d have a chance because if they lost to Hungary by 1 goal and we won Estonia by 1 we d be on top. It didn't happen.

This campaign was lost in 1 match, no more. The Fin-Gre one.

I can blame it on the injuries and Skibbe. Siovas and Retsos instead of Tzavellas -> No 1-0 for Finns -> game would be a dull probably.

Skibbe had his shots but they didnt; come. Stafylidis also a key player we missed in the NL alongside Retsos.

Anastasiadis neds to make it a 3-5-2 with donis as a SS and Torosidis - Bakakis on the Right / Stafylidis - Lykogiannis - Koutris -Holebas (heard rumours he might come back with Skibe gone) on the Left are mostly offensively orientated. 

3-5-2

Vlachodimos

Manolas Sokratis Siovas/Retsos

Torosidis                                         Stafylidis

              Zeka Kourbelis

                      Fortounis/Pelkas

Mitroglou                      Donis

bench:

Karnezis has stable playtime at Napoli I don't get why hes out. Paschalakis beast as well.

Lykogianis Koutris Bakakis Holebas and maybe promote 1 or 2 CB from the youth like Hatzidiakos/Mavropanos

Bouchalakis Samaris because honestly I can name no other holding mid who s decent right now. Play Mantalos at 8 maybe is not bad.

Masouras / Lamprou wingers who deserved a call up right now imho. Take Lazaros too but that guy is a flop and at the end of his career. He does a good month and everyone s crying that he is the new messi fcking annoying pricks stop pretending he s any good.

Koulouris that boy was unexpected from the Finns. If he started maybe we scored. He can also press more than Mitroglou.

 

That's it. 12 points in 6 matches is a good result.  2nd place isn't. Same as last campaign(v croatia) we were so close as ONE MATCH. One match that decides success over failure. We ll make it eventually. Karma owes us an easy group 

 

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9 minutes ago, Rockafeller Skank said:

Stop crying over some pathetic average for League C level wingers.

2 years ago it was Gianniotas, 4 years ago it was Fetfatzidis, now it is Lazaros.

None of them are game changers none of them can open defences (Lazaros is mostly a second striker imho at his current state).

If we scored twice vs Finland we d have a chance because if they lost to Hungary by 1 goal and we won Estonia by 1 we d be on top. It didn't happen.

This campaign was lost in 1 match, no more. The Fin-Gre one.

I can blame it on the injuries and Skibbe. Siovas and Retsos instead of Tzavellas -> No 1-0 for Finns -> game would be a dull probably.

Skibbe had his shots but they didnt; come. Stafylidis also a key player we missed in the NL alongside Retsos.

Anastasiadis neds to make it a 3-5-2 with donis as a SS and Torosidis - Bakakis on the Right / Stafylidis - Lykogiannis - Koutris -Holebas (heard rumours he might come back with Skibe gone) on the Left are mostly offensively orientated. 

3-5-2

Vlachodimos

Manolas Sokratis Siovas/Retsos

Torosidis                                         Stafylidis

              Zeka Kourbelis

                      Fortounis/Pelkas

Mitroglou                      Donis

bench:

Karnezis has stable playtime at Napoli I don't get why hes out. Paschalakis beast as well.

Lykogianis Koutris Bakakis Holebas and maybe promote 1 or 2 CB from the youth like Hatzidiakos/Mavropanos

Bouchalakis Samaris because honestly I can name no other holding mid who s decent right now. Play Mantalos at 8 maybe is not bad.

Masouras / Lamprou wingers who deserved a call up right now imho. Take Lazaros too but that guy is a flop and at the end of his career. He does a good month and everyone s crying that he is the new messi fcking annoying pricks stop pretending he s any good.

Koulouris that boy was unexpected from the Finns. If he started maybe we scored. He can also press more than Mitroglou.

 

That's it. 12 points in 6 matches is a good result.  2nd place isn't. Same as last campaign(v croatia) we were so close as ONE MATCH. One match that decides success over failure. We ll make it eventually. Karma owes us an easy group 

 

12 points out of a possible 18 is NOT good when you have Hungary, Finland and Estonia in your group.. I guess your expectations are low.. At worst we should have had 15 points.. Look at these teams, having 2 loses in a group like this.. So by that logic then there is no way we should finish above 3rd place in the Euro campaign as the teams we play are going to be much more superior then the ones we had in the Nations League group. 

Lazoras is at least a natural winger and I would take him over Mantalos in a heartbeat... As I mentioned before I don't think our wingers will make a huge difference as long we have the midfielder we currently have.. We currently have midfielder that can't make proper passes but rather tend to send the ball back or short passes to Fourtounis in the middle, We have no one in the middle to send passes down the wing and open up the oppositions defence..

 

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I don't have low expectations. We cant play minors and westruggled in the Santos era as well. I remember that 1-0 narrow win vs Liechtenstein. We can't open closed defences. And when we don't we panic and open behind. We never could play teams that park it against us. We do better vs better opposition.

I think my posts here still exist. I said win 3 games at home and 2 draws away I ll be happy. Expected to win Estonia twice. The draws didn;t come.

Edited by Rockafeller Skank
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34 minutes ago, georgelaz said:

To be honest, I think Bakasetas only plays so much because he's handsome and his name is fun to say.

Although, the lookalike Clint Eastwood or nowdays Chris Pratt of the Ethniki has been undoubtably Alex Tzioli$!

He had Skibbe in a trancient state.

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1 hour ago, ausgreek said:

Although, the lookalike Clint Eastwood or nowdays Chris Pratt of the Ethniki has been undoubtably Alex Tzioli$!

He had Skibbe in a trancient state.

With that logic Kone and Karnezis should be on the roster as well. 

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We haven’t even tried something different for our front 4. We shouldn’t dismiss that we can’t open other defences when firstly we haven’t played to upfront and secondly we don’t play natural wingers. Donis is essential to this team even though his end product is not that good. If we can first play with natural wingers then we can put someone who has great vision like Bouzoukis for example. At least we should something else apart from having Pelkas and Mantalos on the wings.  I also can believe Bakasetas is still in our plans. The media must love him.

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1 hour ago, Argy said:

With that logic Kone and Karnezis should be on the roster as well. 

 laughed when there was an article saying that in 2016 the ethiniki was more concerned with their hair gel than qualifying lol.

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Where has Pelkas and Mantalos playing on the wing gotten us?? Absolutely no where... Why is it so hard for this team to play guys in their natural position where they are comfortable??? We need to change it up and I have hope that Ange will do that.. We can cry all we want but the truth in the matter is that we don’t have many options... I would rather lose with young guys that are up and coming then lose with Mantalos and Bakasetas ffs.. I truly hope this coach try’s a different format against Estonia..  Even tho we had a narrow 1-0 win witch wasn’t enough to give us a chance at first there a lot of positives so far and those positives are the end of Tziolis, Tzavellas, the addition of Koutris, Vlachodimos added.. I do believe he will add more guys coming up after the U21.. The negative was not calling up Laz and maybe Fetfa and playing Matanols and Pelkas on the wing.. The other negative was not playing a second striker.. I think we should be optimistic that we got the win and we have a new coach that immidiatley cut the garbage from this team.. I also think if Ang was our coach we would have topped  this group.

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2 hours ago, J1078 said:

Where has Pelkas and Mantalos playing on the wing gotten us?? Absolutely no where... Why is it so hard for this team to play guys in their natural position where they are comfortable??? We need to change it up and I have hope that Ange will do that.. We can cry all we want but the truth in the matter is that we don’t have many options... I would rather lose with young guys that are up and coming then lose with Mantalos and Bakasetas ffs.. I truly hope this coach try’s a different format against Estonia..  Even tho we had a narrow 1-0 win witch wasn’t enough to give us a chance at first there a lot of positives so far and those positives are the end of Tziolis, Tzavellas, the addition of Koutris, Vlachodimos added.. I do believe he will add more guys coming up after the U21.. The negative was not calling up Laz and maybe Fetfa and playing Matanols and Pelkas on the wing.. The other negative was not playing a second striker.. I think we should be optimistic that we got the win and we have a new coach that immidiatley cut the garbage from this team.. I also think if Ang was our coach we would have topped  this group.

Good points, though I think now Tziolis wasnt that bad as (almost) everybody said. His second half performance vs Hungary was acceptable. Same goes for his first half against Finland. After the injury of Papastathopoulos he became invisible, but in that second half several players were abysmal. I dont say he should be capped, Im just saying he tried to do his best, well, he was average but wasnt worse than Bakasetas (who played out of position, but he has been so incredibly lazy, slow, and thoughtless when playing for the NT).

You are right about Mantalos. Ive always said since 2014 "this guy is overhyped and shouldnt be in the squad". He is essentially a Ninis 2.0: he has now won 30+ cap although he has been almost always mediocre and on several occasions our worst player on the pitch.

Tziolis, Tzavellas kicked out, Vlachodimos and Koutris added - these are indeed positive changes. And yes, probably we would have won the group with Anastasiadis.

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Mantalos has been disappointing especially recently. Bakasetas just doesn’t belong on the NT there are other players that replace him. I agree if Anastasiadis was at the helm at the start of the nations league Greece would have topped the group. I’m eager to see who we draw for Euro qualifiers and hope we get off to a good start.

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3 hours ago, La Mendel said:

Bakasetas is a poster boy haha. I guess EPO wants more women in the stadiums.

You would remember how some of the players looked like in the Golden Age (Charisteas or Avraam for example). Especially Karagounis at times looked like nothing on earth.

Its important to have a marketing genius, and presentation is part of that. Baskets can be that person and take up a spot in the 23. A similar role to Usain Bolt. He would of attracted yummy mummies from all around NSW at the Mariners had he accepted the $150k.

 

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3 hours ago, Ellada2004 said:

Mantalos has been disappointing especially recently. Bakasetas just doesn’t belong on the NT there are other players that replace him. I agree if Anastasiadis was at the helm at the start of the nations league Greece would have topped the group. I’m eager to see who we draw for Euro qualifiers and hope we get off to a good start.

Bakasetas has no place in the team. He is slow and is clueless. I once thought he was a decent player at Panionios. I now don’t think much of him. He just doesn’t do it for the national team. 

With Mantalos, it’s been proven time and time again that this guy is not the same player that he once was before his injuries. He also proved that he can’t play on the wing. He is not a winger. Pelkas is the same. I have said many times for Pelkas to play on the wing and he has proved he can’t do it there.

Its all obvious now. How many more chances do these guys deserve? Just because they have a significant role in their respective teams it doesn’t mean that they get chance after chance in the national team. It hasn’t worked so look at other options...

I hope Anastasiadis is going for Donis and Chatzigiovanis at least for the wings in the future. I don’t think he will ever call up Fetfatzidis and Lazaros just because of the age factor. I think he has the mentality of out with the old and in with the new. The new age of Greek footballers such as Bouzoukis, Chatzigiovannis and so on. I predict that he wants to build towards the future. That’s why we have seen Koutris and Vlachodimos get their debuts respectively. 

Siovas I think is the exception. I like him but I think his pace is a bit of a concern. As long as he can position himself properly and consistently we should be fine. He did well I thought against Finland. Also Sokratis has got the pace to cover if need be. 

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During the press conference today a reporter asked the coach "there has been a lot of talk on why you choose to play with three 10's against Finland exactly what Skibbe did?" Coach is answer " I don't recognize players by their number whether they are a 10 or a 9 or a 6 and I don't choose players based on that"... That is a horrible way to coach in my opinion.... I hope he wasn't series... Obviously the question was directed towards Pelkas and Mantalos playing on the wing... 

Edited by J1078
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2 hours ago, J1078 said:

During the press conference today a reporter asked the coach "there has been a lot of talk on why you choose to play with three 10's against Finland exactly what Skibbe did?" Coach is answer " I don't recognize players by their number whether they are a 10 or a 9 or a 6 and I don't choose players based on that"... That is a horrible way to coach in my opinion.... I hope he wasn't series... Obviously the question was directed towards Pelkas and Mantalos playing on the wing... 

That’s why he’s coaching and we’re in this chat room. 

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55 minutes ago, Jimmyp said:

If we think laz, fetfa, and Donis are the saviours of this team then we’re in trouble. 

I don't recall anyone saying "laz, Fetfa and Donis are the saviours" but simply I think people are fed up with playing the same guys with no results... And fyi you don't know if Donis and Fetfa wont workout because we haven't tried them together.. We no for sure that Pelkas and Mantalos are not the answer as they've played numerous games together and look at the results they have produced.. hopefully some younger guy that comes up can produce but until they do I think a good coach would try different guys if the current group are not producing.. Don t you?? But I always recall you saying that we wont be good unless we have a Renaldo or a Mbappe or Mesi… Sure having a superstar helps immensely but realistically in 2004 we beat Ronaldo, Nedved, Zidane, so as long as you have competent players with some skill that buy into a system you can actually be successful.. Korea beat Germany 2-0 in the world cup and I'm pretty sure Korea has no superstars.. Sweden got pretty far with NO superstars either...

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2 hours ago, J1078 said:

I don't recall anyone saying "laz, Fetfa and Donis are the saviours" but simply I think people are fed up with playing the same guys with no results... And fyi you don't know if Donis and Fetfa wont workout because we haven't tried them together.. We no for sure that Pelkas and Mantalos are not the answer as they've played numerous games together and look at the results they have produced.. hopefully some younger guy that comes up can produce but until they do I think a good coach would try different guys if the current group are not producing.. Don t you?? But I always recall you saying that we wont be good unless we have a Renaldo or a Mbappe or Mesi… Sure having a superstar helps immensely but realistically in 2004 we beat Ronaldo, Nedved, Zidane, so as long as you have competent players with some skill that buy into a system you can actually be successful.. Korea beat Germany 2-0 in the world cup and I'm pretty sure Korea has no superstars.. Sweden got pretty far with NO superstars either...

Fantastic post. I agree with everything you said as I said those things in my previous comment above. It’s time to change things up top...

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6 hours ago, J1078 said:

During the press conference today a reporter asked the coach "there has been a lot of talk on why you choose to play with three 10's against Finland exactly what Skibbe did?" Coach is answer " I don't recognize players by their number whether they are a 10 or a 9 or a 6 and I don't choose players based on that"... That is a horrible way to coach in my opinion.... I hope he wasn't series... Obviously the question was directed towards Pelkas and Mantalos playing on the wing... 

I don’t know what to think about this. Was he saying that he would like to play players out of position?

His reply seems very unclear to me. Im not sure but it seems like he wasn’t answering the question. Seems like he tried to spin it without giving a clear answer. 

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3 hours ago, J1078 said:

I don't recall anyone saying "laz, Fetfa and Donis are the saviours" but simply I think people are fed up with playing the same guys with no results... And fyi you don't know if Donis and Fetfa wont workout because we haven't tried them together.. We no for sure that Pelkas and Mantalos are not the answer as they've played numerous games together and look at the results they have produced.. hopefully some younger guy that comes up can produce but until they do I think a good coach would try different guys if the current group are not producing.. Don t you?? But I always recall you saying that we wont be good unless we have a Renaldo or a Mbappe or Mesi… Sure having a superstar helps immensely but realistically in 2004 we beat Ronaldo, Nedved, Zidane, so as long as you have competent players with some skill that buy into a system you can actually be successful.. Korea beat Germany 2-0 in the world cup and I'm pretty sure Korea has no superstars.. Sweden got pretty far with NO superstars either...

I hope I am wrong but Greece may never produce superstar offensive talents the likes of Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Mbappe, etc. Greece due produce excellent defenders the likes of Manolas and Sokratis and Dellas back in the day. We had a great system in 2004 and we took down offensive titans like Portugal with Ronaldo, Figo, Deco, Pauleta,  France with Zidane & Henry, Chzech Republic with Nedved, Koller, Baros etc. We need to play to our strength which is a strong focus first on defensive football and playing the best possible 11 at our disposal and also to stop playing players out of position. Greece certainly have a good pool of talent to draw from so that should not be an issue.

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3 hours ago, J1078 said:

I don't recall anyone saying "laz, Fetfa and Donis are the saviours" but simply I think people are fed up with playing the same guys with no results... And fyi you don't know if Donis and Fetfa wont workout because we haven't tried them together.. We no for sure that Pelkas and Mantalos are not the answer as they've played numerous games together and look at the results they have produced.. hopefully some younger guy that comes up can produce but until they do I think a good coach would try different guys if the current group are not producing.. Don t you?? But I always recall you saying that we wont be good unless we have a Renaldo or a Mbappe or Mesi… Sure having a superstar helps immensely but realistically in 2004 we beat Ronaldo, Nedved, Zidane, so as long as you have competent players with some skill that buy into a system you can actually be successful.. Korea beat Germany 2-0 in the world cup and I'm pretty sure Korea has no superstars.. Sweden got pretty far with NO superstars either...

He’s 1 and 0. Good enough for me 

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