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Well said Skank, this is a national team and not a talent developing center. They should play for their respective clubs regularly before they get call ups. Five years ago, Triantafyllopoulos, Iliadis, Katidis, Vellios, Diamantakos etc. were the promising players, like Limnios, Lamprou, Koulouris are now. Everybody can see where the aforementioned play now. Ages ago these talented kids were called Masmanidis (does anyone remember him? he was a youth team player in Germany), Koutsianikoulis, Fetfatzidis, Lampropoulos etc. So-called talented footballers often do not have a great career in Greece. Retsos plays at 19 for a Bundesliga team, everywhere in the world you can see youngsters are starters for famous clubs, he is the only real Greek talent now. There may be late bloomers (Holebas was one, and arguably Karnezis too), but these guys who are skilled and "look promising" while being on loan at 23 are probably new versions of Mavrias, Athanasiadis & co., what would mean they will never be useful at international level.

Αν πιστέψουμε την ΕΛΣΤΑΤ ο δείκτης γονιμότητας έπεσε κάτω από το 2.0 το 1983. Στη συνέχεια έπεσε κάτω από 1.5 το 1987. Εκτοτε κόλλησε κάτω από το 1.5. Γάτες οι Ελληνίδες, προείδαν οτι η πτώχευση θα ερχότανε το 2010!

I can't see a warrior like Sokratis missing out on these games with a spot in the World Cup on the line.

We cannot continuously change managers. In the end nobody will dare come to us as they know that they will be given three months to perform miracles. The problem with PAOK is behind the scenes with the like of Vukic and Koutsoliakos. Unfortunately Savvidis may well be a good business but he has no idea about football. The biggest mistake we made was getting rid of Ivic. Hiring Stanojevic then replacing him with someone we could have got in the first place was an absolute farce. We will not win anything this season.

Why does Lucescu have to go so early ? Wasn't Ivic just as bad or worse last season ? He didn't get the team clicking until after Christmas. This game went as expected. If you were going to put money on which PAOK player would get a red card, we all know who we would put our money on. A dour game with few chances. What a surprise. The biggest mistake Lucescu is making is playing Vieirinha and El Khaddouri regardless of their form, but I think he's stuck there. He can't tell Savvidis "sorry mate, your super signings aren't that great". Not that they're terrible players or won't come good, but in today's game you play Campos and Biseswar all the way. This was always going to be a game where you need more brawn than finesse and Campos is better than Vieirinha at that. He can take the kicks. Add to that a Lucescu who is instinctively defensive and a squad that's still a bit all over the place and this result is far from surprising. Disappointing yes, but not surprising. Get a new manager at the end of the season if someone better than Lucescu is available, but for now, I see no point in getting rid of him.

Working without critiscism is unhealthy. Achieving your goals against any criticism is healthy. So far he has achived his goal of 2nd place. It's not a matter of coach if we can't win croatia or not. We don;t have the squad to beat them. But we didn't have the squad to draw Belgium and play 180 minutes like we were worth a spot in Russia, yet we did. Skibbe has a few selections that suck. I ll go make a post about my ideal 23 man roster. However, Skibbe's managerial plans have all worked. The only match he really didn't get what he realistically wanted was vs Estonia. We re talking about 1 match in 10. People are literally talking about 1 match for Skibbe. Everyone forgot his draw (which was 100% strategical and coaching outplay, nothing more) with Belgium. Everyone forgot he didn't lose to Bosnia and in fact made them look weaker away. Everyone talks about the Estonia match. And he doesn't care.

Do we have a final answer weather Sokratis will miss the games or not? I heard he is fine but his MRI today will show what s gonna happen. Also don't cry over Manolas. It is just 90 minutes and the team might play more conservatively with his absence. We have the roster and ability to do that. Papadopoulos ain't even close to Manolas level but he is decent. Mandzukic ain't a pacey monster who needs a quick centerback to mark him anyways. As long as our wingers backtrack and help Toro and Stafylidi/Tzavellas and Zeka is on Modric all the time I think we re looking for a 0-0 match there. The Croatians know they d rather play conservative first leg as well since they don't wanna let us have the pleasure of an away goal. The real issue is not missing Sokratis for both legs. If he does miss I can't see how Retsos / K. Papadopoulos are as good as our Manolas/Sokratis duo. They re probably miles away since they re both young and not fully developed yet. Btw my abscence from these forums since Manolas elimination from the first match is something I'd recommend to everyone. There are too many posters who just spread negativity and do nothing else. I dont need various people telling me the team I love the most is having a hard time. I ll see you guys at the matchday!!!

Yeah, I think that we need to believe that this team has goals in it. Tziolis scored in Cyprus so who knows he may go on a roll and get a 2nd. K Pap is good in the air. Stafylidis and Tzavellas can hit them from outside the box. Fortounis scored 3 and is due another soon. Zecca, Samaris and Laz have all scored for the Ethniki. Gianniotis has scored 2, from limited chances.

Sport 24 just reported Socratis is only 50-50 to play in the playoffs..