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We may suck. There are others too:

@Athens4 if you want to make the CL email Savvidis and tell him to spend some money. Oh that's right, he can't due to FFP. I believe if we had Cabella playing for us we would've qualified instead of Krasnodar. Problem is he cost Krasnodar 12 million. That's how much we'll spend on 6 players over 4 years. We shouldn't cry when we can beat teams with bigger budgets and better quality squads. Yes, we had our chances, but they didn't get there. As for the Conference League, maybe that's where our teams belong. Let's face it, the league has dropped multiple spots over the last 15 years in the rankings. Every year we drop another level. Something is obviously wrong with our league and I don't put it all down to money. Anyway, with 4 teams each win in Europe will count for more and I'd like to think we would get more wins in the Conference League.

Giakoumakis provided the assist yesterday for the goal VVV-Venlo made in the 1-1 draw against FC Utrecht .

Olympiakos will be drawn in Group C with Porto, Manchester City, and Olympique Marseille

Tzavellas, well that was unexpected. If the only good thing that comes of it is it riles up Boxou then I suppose it's worth it.

I would like Arsenal PAOK Macabi Tel Aviv CSKA Sofia If I can't get Arsenal from pot 1 than I'll take Celtic of Gent

Cluj was pretty scary a few years ago. Haven't paid attention to them since their big CL run. Give me Gent, Rangers, Dundalk

Oh snap that's great. AEK wins as well, it seems. Very few teams below us that I'd be afraid of now -edit- Galatasaray out as well. Big!

Simoes with a great strike on the 1st goal. It wasn't looking good for AEK after Mantalos missed the pk and Wolfsburg scored right before half time. Bravo AEK!!

Ansarifard with the winning goal WOW!!

That last set piece for Wolfsburg almost gave me a heart attack. That was 9.99 well spent. Now I have to keep paying for CBS All Access.

Wow lol I ate my words

Looks like miracle results happened. PAOK is officially in pot 2 for tomorrows draw. Not sure if that is good as there are some good teams in pot 3 that we will now have to face.

Look at it this way, if you had employees named Sokratis Pap, Manolas and Siovas white-anting your business, you would get rid of them, NO Question. Stafy plays better at FB than Tzavellas, but Tzavellas plays better as CB than Stafy, I believe. Staf is injured anyway. Tzav adds experience to the squad under the circumstances even though he is not ideal. At least one of the Ethniki's greatest DM's of all time, often preferred by multiple gaffas, with 75 caps to his name is not recalled this time, that man being Alexandros Tziolis! You may have ridiculed yourself because you are not done, you will be back for the next game, you know it!

Lol. Greek clubs in europe are hilarious.

Mantalos penalty was saved by the goalkeeper, WTF !?

I don't disagree, but you have to be ready to play in the CL. We are not. And last two years we were not ready to even play in Europa League. I say this season go out and have a respectable showing in EL. Qualify from the groups stage and see how far you can go. Next season go to Conference and see if can make it to the quarterfinals or semifinals. Slowly build up before you tackle CL again.

Looks like Vagiannidis is on his way to Belgium and Sint Truidense for a season long loan from Inter. Not overly surprising hopefully the kid is a starter in Belgium and gets some minutes under his belt! Lord knows we need right backs. https://www.sport24.gr/football/inter-daneikos-sti-sint-troyinten-o-vagiannidis.9004540.html

Tzavellas???? WTF

Well colour me surprised, Tzavellas has been called up. 26 players called as we are playing a friendly against Austria before the Nations Leagues games. So it'll be 3 games in 7 days, I'd expect to see pretty big rotation and JVS to start some of the guys he hasn't been playing in the friendly.

Watching Wague play yesterday, and some of the "hype" from his signing reminded me of this classic:

Εν προκειμένω, ο Άρης είναι από τους πιο χαμένους. Πέραν από τα έσοδα των εισιτηρίων στα εντός, το Χαριλάου είναι από τις πιο πιεστικές έδρες.

With a yellow card, all nervous and pressure on the air, he could be powder keg. But I would always prefer to have him playing more minutes. Even worn out. In any case, in this case I can understand Abel. On the other options, not at all.

Wague Banana, why the hell not. Let's add that to the urban dictionary.

As long as we're in Europe, be it EL or CL or whatever, I'm happy. If CL didn't have the big money it does, I couldn't give a rats whether we play there or EL. Then again, I'm not normal.

Made a lot of sense considering the "system" he plays. He is not a CF. Having said that, the "system" is the problem not Pelkas. Something has to give when you play with 3 centre backs. Pelkas is an attacking mid that should be part of a 3 man midfield in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-1-3 if you like.

I like Pelkas, I don't like Abel. But Pelkas only lasts or 60 min. Always.

Crespo had a nightmare performance, I was calling for Wague but he was actually worse. Subbing Pelkas, not only the single playmaker one the park but our captain and leader, (need I even mention how important it is to have someone out there like that when things get desperate) was a rookie mistake, Tzolis was the correct substitution. Michalidis was either tired or just lazy/casual those last 25 minutes, I’m not surprised he made that mistake after seeing his body language just minutes prior. All in all, a standard PAOK let down. I failed to get my hopes up for Besiktas and Benfica, and typical PAOK, they give us a reason to believe, only to have a loss hurt 10x as much. Hopefully we can have some good results in Europe and get back on track in league, put this behind us, but I have a feeling there will be some scarring.

All four of their goals were cheap. 1) Giannoulis going down like that in the box should be punished with at least a week's wages 2) Another calamity at the back, pretty much a duplicate of the goal we conceded against Slovan 3) I have no idea why Michailidis is trying to flick the ball. Just stick your leg out and block it. I thought at first it may be lack of experience but this was actually a Sunday league error 4) Our defence ball watching allowed for another tap in for that French "c u next Tuesday" who, to give credit where due, is an excellent player

We might be able to. They have 2 teams left in the competitions and after tomorrow it's possible they will only have one. We are going to the groups stages with 2 teams and possibly 3. Serbia in 16th place has only one team left. Our teams will need to do well in the group stages. As for the Conference League i would not necessarily put the competition down. After all it might be an easier path to actually accomplish something in Europe. Something that no Greek team has never done as opposed to other countries. After all even teams such as Slovan Bratislava won an European title in the past.

Unless there are some miracles in tomorrows EL games, PAOK will be in pot 3, and will probably play one powerhouse (Roma, Napoli, Benfica) from pot 1, one team of our caliber (pot 2), and one weaker team (at least on paper) from pot 4. We should progress from the group stage and try our best in the knockout rounds.

It seemed so reachable. Even understanding the focus on equilibrium, balance, I always expected more willingless to invade, more desire, more risk. Too much rational, and no effetive attacking connections, solutions. Globally poor and again: not only an individual quality issue. For this proposed tactical approach, no real fluid processes.

For some unknown reason Covid-19 has no effect on large crowds that gather to protest or riot. It is lethal when more than 6 people meet up in the garden though.

A formula of Cabella and a missing right back and striker cost us a place in the CL groups. Now that the UEFA mafia are introducing a Conference League (I dread to think what sort of quality we will see in that), we will never make the CL group stages. My whole life I waited for this moment and it is gone because we didn't get a right back and a striker. Then again I am one of the younger ones, I feel more sorry for the older lads here who waited even longer.