After the disastrous results of some Greek teams in their respective Champions League and Europa League groups (AEK PAOK) and some other Greek teams in the qualification stages of Europa League (Atromitos Asteras) I think we should see that the players of these sides are really bad at international level. If we want a successful Ethniki we should rely on those footballers who have been successful at international level. Of all our teams, only Olympiacos got some results in European Cups this year. The 3-1 win against Milan is the greatest success of Greek football since a long time (at least 2-3 years). Koutris Fortounis Torosidis Fetfatzidis should be called up for the NT. I hope Bouchalakis (who played only a couple of minutes against Milan) will experience similar successes with Olympiacos. It is important that national team players be successful on the European stage. If you won against European top clubs, you will not be afraid of big name players and powerhouses in the national team. Think of the 2002 Panathinaikos or 1999 Olympiacos, or indeed any of our top clubs (Oly Pana AEK) between 2000 and 2005. They got great results against teams like Barcelona (Panathinaikos Barcelona 1-0 with Basinas penalty in 2002) and Real Madrid (AEKs two draws in the group stage, Panathinaikos draw in second group stage in 2002). Basinas Fyssas Katsouranis (then an AEK player) Karagounis Goumas Nikopolidis Seitaridis Giannakopoulos Zagorakis Tsiartas played against world class footballers in the CL, no wonder they won against Spain Portugal France and the likes. Super League teams are now pathetically weak at international level. We dont have such a great pool of Greek footballers who play at home. As I said, basically we have some Olympiacos players, and our best footballers who play for Italian, German and English sides (Manolas Papastathopoulos Mitroglou - they are the best; then Vlachodimos Lykogiannis Siovas Retsos). Those guys who play frequently for Belgian/Austrian/Dutch sides should be called up IMO, as these leagues are stronger now than the "Super" League, according to UEFA rank list. That said, Vellios (who plays regularly for his Belgian team) or Avlonitis (a solid centre back who plays in Austria) offer not much help. Marinos and Lamprou should be considered, perhaps Fountas too. Still, we seem to have a very limited pool of players who are ripe for the NT right now. Perhaps we should consider all soccer players who ply their trade in at least half decent leagues (after all Zeca plays in Denmark and he is our best defensive midfielder)
Id suggest the best squad would consist of Vlachodimos Karnezis - Torosidis Manolas Papastathopoulos Koutris Siovas Retsos Lykogiannis Tsimikas - Zeca Fortounis Bouchalakis - Fetfatzidis Christodoulopoulos Donis Mitroglou.
You see that we practically have only crap midfielders. I think Karagounis could squeeze out many of the current tits even at the age of 41. It is crazy that we dont have better defensive midfielders, Samaris almost never featuring for Benfica, Petsos being not even in the squad of Werder Bremen (I hope he can find a good team, even an Austrian team would be quite okay), Tachtsidis being in a similar position in the Championship, Kourbelis playing for an internationally marginal side and Siopis being who he is. Obviously as long as Taxi and the likes dont play at all, Kourbelis will get the call up, and Bouchalakis is not a jot better himself than Kourbelis.