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We just went toe to toe with the best team in the world. Scoring 2 goals in 5 minutes was unreal. This was a huge confidence booster heading into March. A lot of positives from the boys tonight. We all should be proud of this performance..

Job #1 qualify. Job #2 don't lose to Turkey

We looked like we played good football for a while and yes Bakasetas can hit them well from distance. I was mostly impressed with Ioannidis for the way he held up the ball and got into great positions and that finish was a typical strikers goal. Good on him.

Group F portugal turkey czech playoff C

Release of November 30th: #47

Nice result for the boys! France came out hard and had a few regulars in their starting eleven. First half we were absorbing a lot of pressure. In the second half we looked sharp with some nice ball movement. Great volley goal from Bakasetas he can hit them well! Gianoulis a beautiful set up for Ioanidis goal. We got some luck with that double post shot and Mbappe hitting the crossbar. Pavlidis struggled when he came in. He is falling down the depth chart on our list of strikers.

Fortounis retired from the Ethniki. This reminds me all over again, about the potential returns of Sokratis, Manolas, Siovas & some creative mids a number of years ago. Like the words in that movie Frozen say, 'let it go.' This is now a new era. Bring on the likes of Konstantelias & Alexandropoulos.

Yes spot on! If our key players are fit we are the favourites to qualify no doubt. Draw was great should we qualify. I was worried we would land in Spain’s group. Also if we qualify we would play Turkey first then Czechs & Portugal last which could be good for us if Portugal have qualified by then. Anyways looking forward to the matches in March.

I think only group E would have been better than the draw we got. In saying that Turkey and Czechs won't be easy by any stretch but you would say we are relatively evenly matched, at least on paper. Portugal breezed through qualifying, but I don't know I have a feeling they aren't going to smash the group and will drop points. Remember, 4 of the 6 best placed third placed sides will also qualify for the round of 16! We have a way to go until worrying about that though. Let's get to March with all our key players fit and in form.

I will take it as it looks like we got the an easier group compared to the rest. If we make it.. GROUP A Germany Hungary Scotland Switzerland GROUP B Spain Croatia Italy Albania GROUP C Slovenia Denmark Serbia England GROUP D Playoff winner A Netherlands Austria France GROUP E Belgium Slovakia Romania Playoff winner B Group F Turkey Portugal Playoff winner C (Greece) Czechia

big win congrats to our team

Yeeeees!!! Big result. 1st place in the group and we get to skip one round.

Greeks are allergic to real weather

Got a bit of bad luck being stuck on the road against Georgia/Luxembourg should we get that far, but if we can't win that(and against Kazakhstan), we shouldn't be at the Euro in the first place.

Draw for the final of the play-offs: March 26th, 2024: winner of Georgia vs Luxemburg VS winner of Greece vs Kazachstan. Semifinal is on the 21st of March.

If they play like this they should smash Kazakhstan!!

Greece 2-2 France FT Good effort paidia! Make it happen in the playoff!

Nice shot no chance for Vlach..

Georgia is also no push over. it wont be as easy as some people think. In saying that if you cant come out on top against, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Luxembourg then you probably don't deserve to go to the Euros anyways..

Yep it's confirmed. We will take on Kazakhstan on the 21st of March at OPAP Arena. The other semi is Georgia v Luxembourg.

Giakoumakis goal!! 2-0

KONSTANTELIAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a strong line-up, probably the best we can offer now.

Nationality isn't as simple as "play where you're roots are from" Legally I'm Australian, but both my parents are Greek. Therefore my "blood" is Greek. Who should I have played for? (if I actually could have controlled a ball) There are people who have lived in other countries for generations and don't feel or have any connection to their ethnic backgrounds. Why should they be forced to play for their "motherland" just because their great great grandparents were born there. Similarly, some people are super connected to their backgrounds and feel more connected to that nation then the country they live in. In Narey's case, he is a product of German football. He was born and grew up there, went to school there, learnt to play football there etc. No issue with him playing for Germany if he was good enough. No issue with him playing for Togo either.

Tzavellas is the biggest scumbag of a player that there is. He created serious problems in the locker room while he was at PAOK. There are better role models out there for the NT locker room. As for Poyet it's obvious that he wants out and is creating these issues right now. Would not be surprised if we go to the Nations League finals with a new coach. If not then for sure in the Euro finals if we manage to qualify.

Every team needs players like that who don't offer much on the field anymore but are good for the locker room. Maybe not selecting him will cause more headaches w/ the current players. I am fine having him as a vocal leader on the bench. For all accounts, he is a good team player.

I think he picks Tzavellas only for the dressing room..There is something he brings that he likes, JVS always selected him as well.

The Nea Mesimvria training center that was built by Zagorakis will soon be history. Ivan Savvidis has decided to build a new PAOK training center at Thermi that will cost around 10 million Euro and will be completed in 2 years. It will be used by all PAOK football teams including the academies and the women's teams. It will include: - 6 football fields - one of the fields will have stands with a capacity of 5,000 and will be used for games of PAOK B and U19 games - indoor swimming pool - indoor training facilities - housing quarters for the academy and youth players

Squad announced for this game and the qualifier v France. 32 players called-up, you have to figure due the friendly he'll be giving plenty of minutes to a range of players. Vagiannidis from Panathinaikos called-up at right back. Despite the large number of players called-up still no room for Douvikas. Αθανασιάδης, Πασχαλάκης, Διούδης, Βλαχοδήμος, Γούτας, Χατζηδιάκος, Κουλιεράκης, Μαυροπάνος, Ρέτσος, Τζαβέλλας, Μπάλντοκ, Γιαννούλης, Ρότα, Σάλιακας, Τσιμίκας, Βαγιαννίδης, Αλεξανδρόπουλος, Μπακασέτας, Μπουχαλάκης, Γαλανόπουλος, Κουρμπέλης, Μάνταλος, Παπανικολάου, Σιώπης, Χατζηγιοβάνης, Κωνσταντέλιας, Μασούρας, Πέλκας, Φούντας, Γιακουμάκης, Ιωαννίδης, Παυλίδης. Breakdown by position GK (4): Vlachodimos, Paschalakis, Dioudis and Athansiadis. RB (4): Saliakas, Rota, Baldock, Vagiannidis CB (6): Goutas, Chatzidiakos, Mavropanos, Koulierakis, Retsos, Tzavellas LB (2): Tsimikas, Giannoulis CM (8): Alexandropoulos, Bouchalakis, Galanopoulos, Kourbelis, Siopis, Papanikolaou, Mantalos, Bakasetas. Wingers (5): Chatzigiovannis, Konstantelias, Masouras, Pelkas, Fountas Strikers (3): Giakoumakis, Pavlidis, Ioannidis.

Still 6 minutes to go plus the added time. Three goals possible?

The greatest topic of all is back, due to OVERWHELMING demand! Let us all swim in the deluge of lies, love, and nonsense!

1:3 loss to Levadeiakos with Zivko Zivkovic in goal.

2:0 Halftime. Playing very well in first half. One more in the 2nd half and then start concentrating on the cup game on Thursday and make pash richer.

FT. 5-0. Clean sheet, no cards, biggest win this season, suspended players got rid of their cards sitting this one out and pretty well played. I am a satisfied PAOK-fan!

The other suspended player is Kedziora. Pash will be sad as his boy Ismahila Ouédraogo is suspended (for Serres though) too.

No. The final draw will be random. We could host too

Kazakhstan has looked very good this qualifying campaign with some big wins. It will be a very, very tough game.

Great win for the U21 as they defeated Portugal 2-1. Scorers Tzolis and Panagidis. Little Conceicao scored for the Portuguese.

how far back do we go? do you know that Narey's parents whilst maybe born in Togo aren't actually ethnically from one of the neighbouring countries like Ghana or Benin? who do Pontians play for? When Yugoslavia was a thing did no one play for them because the country was manufactured? or should only Serbs have been allowed to play? your stance is an easier one to take when your country is not very ethnically diverse. if you applied the same rule in Australia, we'd probably barely be able to scratch a national team together.

I agree on your first point, those cases as well as other across the world are clearly the player seeing an opportunity to play international football and potentially go to a major tournament. While a bit of a joke, until FIFA alter their rules this will continue to happen. The 2nd point here I strongly disagree with. A national team should demonstrate a nations' ability to produce footballers. While of course there is room for players who are ethnically from that nation but have grown up somewhere else I disagree with what a national team should be. Messi almost played for Spain, because he had been there from 13. Again wouldn't be the first time that happened. It is also very rare that it happens so I don't think it's a pandemic or anything to fret about. Clubs don't go about signing youth players in the hope of strengthening their NT, they care about number one, themselves. As you said Athens, we have to agree to disagree. Nothing wrong with that mate!👍

Greece 2-0 New Zealand FT

I'm a little surprised we fielded pretty much our starting lineup, seeing as how friendlies are usually a time to experiment, but I like what I see. Good confidence booster.

Not watching but positive news our young guns are firing. Need them desperately to help create offence especially from midfield. NZ not the strongest opponent. Really hope Poyet goes with similar lineup vs France.

GIAKOUMAKIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poyet needed to play this lineup vs Holland!

Christos Tzolis, Georgios Koutsias and Nikos Zouglis scored the goals for Greece U21 in their euro qualifier against their peers of the Faroe islands. FT 3-0. Koutsias at the end sent of with a straight red card.

If poyet wants to leave then he should leave. But the bigger question is who comes in next? I think for all his faults poyet is the best option to have after the work he has done. But yet again his faults are mainly his player selections like all the managers we’ve had in the past… I think he’s a good manager but his selections haven’t been good enough. I’d rather bring in Santos than a Skibbe type manager in. We need to start utilising players like Konstantelias and Fortounis otherwise what chance do we have of qualifying? We need our best players out there plain and simple.

Is anyone else noticing Fortounis on fire?? What a shame he’s not on the team.. I think Poyet made a huge mistake keeping him off the team which clearly upset him..

It no doubt is, if we come through the play-offs there is no way he would turn down an extension and the chance to lead us to the Euros. If we don't qualify he may leave, but zero chance if we clinch qualification in March.

Good post, agree with most of this! All the pens are there (even the third that wasn't given probably was). On Bakasetas I do agree that he has struggled against the bigger footballing nations but tbf they are games where as you note our whole midfield has been overrun. The fact that he can boss games against mid-lower ranked teams is important, as in recent qualifying campaigns that is where we have blown our chances. Konstantelias clearly had a role to play in this game, as you note how is the ball supposed to get to the 3 strikers waiting in the box with Bouchalakis and Siopis in midfield. I feel like we are living another version of when Fetfa was playing for the Ethniki, when we would need a goal and various managers would refuse to throw him on😂