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Wishing a Happy and Healthy New Year to all my Aris & Phantis friends.

Thought id post this here, our great team of the last 60's and early 70's and how close we got to the 1970 World Cup in Mexico http://hellasfooty.blogspot.com/2021/12/what-could-have-been-of-mexico-1970.html

As prolific a goal scorer Lewandowski is the farthest Poland have gone with him in a major tournament is quarter finals at Euro 2016 were they lost to Portugal. In 2012 as Euro hosts they failed to get out of the group were Greece and Czechs advanced. In 2014 Poland failed to qualify for the World Cup. At the 2018 World Cup in Russia they were last in there group and the past Euros they did not qualify for the KO round. My point is that Greece in our glory days as EURO champions (love saying that!) did not posses a true world class striker, we had Charisteas who was great with his movement and amazing in the air and lethal in the penalty area. Our strength was from our back line out and our midfield was top notch featuring Karagounis, Katsouranis, Basinas, Zagorakis and Giannakopoulos. A midfield so stacked that the extremely gifted center mid and dangerous set piece taker Tsiartas would mostly come in as a substitute. I believe @Dean97pointed it out that the midfield is our biggest issue as of late we need more creativity and someone to pull the strings. With Fortounis Greece have a play maker and someone with great vision to see the pitch. There are others that could have been called up but were not. Leaving us with Bakasetas as the engine of the midfield that wont cut it over a qualifying campaign and we saw that unfold for the most part these last wcup qualifiers. I would love if we had another Mitroglou like #9 leading the line up top but for the most part he was getting good service from our mids when we qualified for the World Cup. We have Alexandropoulos ready to play and the last coach decided to not give him any time even in the last game with Kosovo were we looked so sluggish trying to breakdown a weak Kosovo side. Also in the previous game at Kosovo 1-1 a game that Greece should put away with more goals the last coach takes out Douvikas who scores in that game with one chance of a nicely played through ball. Not to mention all the work he was doing of the ball that game.

What did we really expect. Did we really think we were going to bring in a big-name coach with a budget of 500,000?? We are going to be stuck with someone very mediocre at best..

His ability and his captaincy credentials are two separate things entirely, I don't doubt his playing ability. Hopefully he is able to bounce back from his 2nd ACL injury and have an impact when he returns. I just disagreed with the idea that because he is the 'best' player he should be captain. You dislike Bakasetas, but IMO I see more captaincy qualities in him than Fortounis. Again don't get it twisted, I'm not saying Bakasetas is a better player.

Captain? This isn't under 12's, you don't just hand the captaincy to the "best" player. There's a lot more to do it, leaderships qualities, personality, liked by teammates etc. Not saying he doesn't have those qualities but I just find the idea that "he's the best lets make him captain" to be such an outdated notion. In fact it's thinking like that holds back the Ethniki, so maybe the idea does have some merit ?‍♂️ I agree that Fortounis has a place on the NT (assuming he gets fully fit) but let's not act like he is the 2nd coming and will automatically make us qualify for tournaments. Fortounis has been to one major tournament as a 19 year old, Euro 2012. Euro 16, WC18 and Euro 20 where he was a nailed on starter we did not qualify. One player can't carry a team, it's far more complicated than some people like to make it sound.

I used to love Papasthatopoulos but the more I hear from him, the more like a whiny little b1tch he sounds. Shut up and man up. If you have something to say, say it. Don't send out cryptic messages and other such b.s. This is your national team we are talking about! Not, some C division minnow. We may not all like some of the moves JVS made but he stayed behind in Greece after announcing his resignation and toured our beautiful Hellas. I follow him on Instagram and he was sharing pics and videos of his travels in Greece and he was commenting on how beautiful a country Hellas is. A kseno showing more love for Hellas than Sokratis ever has! Either man up and speak up or feck off...