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The team looked better than it had at any point under the last two coaches. The coach is trying to see what he has, whether it be Moras or even Tziolis. He is seeing this team for the first time and as we all know, injuries can and do happen. The thing I like is that he is trying to use the best 11 players and not necessarily limiting them to defined positions. Many of us have stated that Holebas may be better off playing up as a winger in games were we need pace. By putting Stafylidis in there in mid, not his natural position, he showed that he would be willing to do that. I rather he experiment and learn about the players now then doing this in September.

Adding to the Melbourne list. Mill park - Greek Cypriots Keon park panathinaikos Westvale Olympic West Preston antagoras Lalor florina Box hill United - Pythagoras Caulfield Cobras Waverley aek Traralgon Olympic (2 hours outside Melbourne in country league) Collingwood city ( not so Greek anymore I heard) East Kew olympiakos

him at benfica might be cool. with Mitroglou & Samaris

Would kpaps have blocked with his crutch? I think that's a yellow at least

In my opinion say what you want about Siovas but he saved us a couple of times. The score could have been more. Oikonomou looked like he couldn't win a header all game. Holebas passing is not good enough. Stafylidis is a better passer of the ball. I think Skibbe also wants Stafylidis somewhere on the team. Vellios looked good with his touches. Karelis and Fortounis are carrying this team in attack. Papazoglou has no place in the team. Petsos I believe is a good player. Overall the team looks promising. I also believe if we had one of Manolas, Sokratis or Papadopoulos starting we would have drew this match.

No reason why he could not have gone with: ............Kapino....................... toro.......oikonomou....siovas...staf .................petsos............... ......fortounis..mandalos..holebas ............karelis..............vellios.. papazoglou has no place in this squad......... kourbelis....bakasetas were worth a call up....so to bouchalakis if fit... this 3 CD....Is not a long term solution

3D has been honoured as a Euroleague legend. Hopefully he will be able to play in the final 4 one last time this season.

You can't blame a manager for trying out players no, granted. But you can blame him for playing 6 defenders, 2 midfielders and 2 strikers. Anyone can see that wasn't going to work. He had enough midfielders on the bench to actually field a semi normal/ functional team, instead of banging square pegs into round holes.

You can't blame the coach for trying out players in friendlies and he practically used everyone in these two matches. The positives are we scored 4 goals in 2 games, which if you take out the 4-3 win against Hungary was 2 more than our campaign in the Euro qualifiers. Also, Fortounis and Petsos look class players and important players going forward. The negatives are 1) we cannot defend set pieces, which in the past was our strength and 2) we concede a dumb goal straight after scoring. Even with Montenegro we conceded from a corner after scoring and we had Manolas and Soc in the starting line up. We need to find our best DM and soon. Tziolis not the answer. I like Samaris as an offensive DM, but historically has shown to be one of the worst at marking players on set pieces. Maybe K Pap is the answer, but will he ever be 100%. On a lighter note, lets face it we can't beat any island, fishermem and the like. Scibbe needs to get this right before Cyprus.

I really hope Skibbe brings to these shores Vellios, Karelis, Fortounis, Mantalos, Pelkas, Vellidis, Oikonomou (the other Oikon), Kaltsas and Petsos, along with Mitro, Oresti, Stathi, Manolas, Toro, Holebas, Samaris, Taxi, Tzavellas, Stafylidis and Siovas No-one over 30 except Holebas.

guys let's be real. when we were up 2-0 we all got very optimistic. I said before, I'll say it again. We're top heavy. Which isn't the worst of things, but we can't do CRAZY experiments even at a friendly. we need to keep a winning psychology. Diamantakos, Velios, Patsatzoglou, Stafilidis, Kapino, Taxi, Oikonomou, Tziolis, is too much we only really should've put Velios, Taxi, and Pelka in there. keep it to 3. even without our 4 key players we looked great until we put on our C TEAM. We got good talent up to the 16th player if u ask me.

The biggest problem is that more often than not the ethniki don't play to their potential. Performance is as much about consistency as it is ability.

For me one of the biggest disapointments was the turnout, i understand its a friendly but that turnout was attrocious Tuesday night or not the game was at 8.30 not 11. I was watching highlights of other friendly games today and all the stadiums were mostly full from the look of things. Im not too dissapointed as the team out there is not our starting 11ada, a good 5/6 starters were missing, the worrying part is out backups are so bad, Tziolis is really the best CM we have im the whole of Greece, seriously? Moras? What? We are so far behind quality wise its sad, i can thibk of litwrally 5/6 good Greek players. The sad thing is this problem will never be solved, money needs to be invested at grass roots level, from the looks of things only 2/3 clubs in Greece produce good quality players, the rest are for the poutso. On another note i dont believe Skibbe is the guy for us, the lineup and subs today say it all.

Fortounis looks so dominate out there though wow. I hope he continues his upward climb. One thing we forget to mention is the HUGE hole that Karagounis left since we were last really good (World Cup 2014). He was still a key part of the team.

We all can agree there is a significant drop in quality from Papastathopoulos/Manolas to Moras/Oikonomou. This was a friendly were the coach decided to try different things, hopefully lessons were learned and we can go on. The positive is that Fortounis has shown to be a difference maker. He will only get better as he continues to play with the team. Say what you want about Karnezis but he is not as bad as many make him out to be. Currently, we do not have anyone better than him. I remember watching Kpaps a few years ago when he was at Schalke. Shalke was playing Benfica in the CL. He must have put in one of the best games I can ever remember him playing as a DM. He was everywhere!!! Sadly, he can not stay healthy.

I would have rather seen our better line up versus Iceland to see how they compare and Skibbe should have used this line up against Montenegro.

I want to echo the Kapinos sucks crowd. This is why Karnezis is the unquestioned starter despite being average.

Moral of the story without Karelis & Fortounis we look sterile. If Manolas & Sokratis were playing they probably would've got only 1 goal, add kpaps and we might've shut them out. We are a very top heavy team. Petsos looks great out there too. Karelis Mitroglou Mantalos Fortounis Kpaps Samaris Holebas Sokratis Manolas Torosidis Karnezis I like Kpaps in midfield a free flowing CB. The 2-3 games we've let him do that, our opponents rarely scored. I really wished we played for the win though. Eg) playing Karnezis, not subbing Fortounis/karelis out, only Velios not Patsa or Diamantakos. We might've got it with that.

Tachtsidis is a nothing player. Good vision, little else. If we are persisting with 3-5-2 it should be a midfield 3 of Petsos - Mantalos -Samaris. I like the idea of Fortounis playing withdrawn behind a target man.

This is a list of Greek-Australian semi-professional clubs I compiled in an earlier post a short while ago. I'll list the others to play at the countries highest level first, followed by the others currently playing in the National Premier League. Melbourne: South Melbourne Hellas Est 1959- Still the countries most successful ever club. 4X NSL Champions, 1 Oceanic Champions League Title and an appearance in the FIFA Club World Cup (where they played Manchester United). Heidelberg United Est 1958- Formed by Makedones mostly from Florina, 2X NSL runner's up Sydney: Sydney Olympic Est 1957 - 2x NSL Champions Adelaide: West Adelaide Hellas Est 1962 - 1 NSL championship The clubs listed below play in the NPL. Being from South Australia I'll name the Greek clubs playing in leagues below the NPL Victoria: Bentleigh Greens (Cypriot) Northcote City Oakleigh Cannons Port Melbourne South Melbourne Heidelberg Other Victorian teams brought to my attention by a fellow PAOK poster Nea Bafra "Altone East [PAOK] Bayside Argonauts Western Suburbs Clifton Hill Malvern City Morwell Pegasus South Springvale [ARIS] Yarraville FC Kingston City [Oly...ftoo] Brunswick City." New South Wales: Sydney Olympic Hamilton Olympic South Australia: Adelaide Comets Adelaide Olympic West Adelaide Hellas Adelaide Cobras (Cypriot, play in another division below) Messinian Association Hawks (Amateur club) Pontian Eagles (Amateur club) Salisbury Florina (Amateur club) Western Australia: Floreat Athena Northern Territory: Darwin Olympic Hellenic Athletic Queensland: Olympic FC ACT: Canberra Olympic Tasmania: Olympia FC If anyone from else from Australia wants to add other Greek clubs from leagues below the NPL feel free.