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And let's give Poyet his due! None of us were too crazy about his hire, and he is 4-0 in this competition, and 5-1 overall. This is the best we've been since we got back from Brazil.

The atmosphere has changed they are starting to learn how to close out games and get the 3 points this was a non factor with this team and previous coaches. The players look like they are plying for each other, they look like they have the passion that’s been missing for years and you can see that when the national anthem was playing with Tsimikas reaction. Even the players on the bench are not stop interacting.. The tide is turning for this team and Poyet is looking like a true coach we’ve been missing. Poyets in game decision making in his short time he’s been here so far is looking spot on he can read the game and the players that don’t have it on a particular night. When was the last time we’ve scored 7 goals and allowed 0 in 4 games played? Man the is the first time in years I’ve been so excited for this team..

Poyet addressed it a few days ago and essentially said, he wasn't called up for these matches because in order to fit him in, the formation needs to be changed from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1. It seems Poyet, as other managers before him at both club and country level don't like Fortounis' lack of work rate and discipline without the ball. He did make a point to say just because he wasn't called this time around doesn't mean he isn't in future plans. In a 4-3-3, Poyet wants his midfield 3 to press without the ball and track the opposition not just play with the ball. Bakasetas, Siopis, Kourbelis offer these things. Clearly he thinks Bakasetas offers enough attacking drive (with the wingers and striker) to create enough opportunities to score. Poyet also described Bakasetas as 'untouchable' atm in his current Ethniki form and it is hard to argue given his performances over the last year. Fortounis has long been discussed here and in the Greek media, he's a media darling and they are just as shocked he hasn't been included. Me personally, I see the reasons why but don't necessarily agree with his exclusion all together. Here's a link to Poyet's explanation in full for anyone interested. https://www.sport24.gr/football/apokalypseis-poget-ayta-eipa-sto-tilefono-me-ton-fortoyni-o-mpakasetas-einai-untouchable.10061489.html

Solid win first up, seems we never really got out of 2nd gear and still managed to score three and hit the woodwork another 3 times. On another day we score 5-6. Not too much more to take out of it but the 3 points. France beating the Netherlands is good news, it means assuming we beat Ireland in Greece in June (we also play France in June but we assume that's a loss and anything we get out of it is a bonus) we would be leading the Dutch heading into our match-up in September. The Dutch don't play in June due to the Nations League finals. It will be important going to the Netherlands and being 3 points clear of them in September, meaning a draw will keep ourselves clear of them heading into the last 4 matches. Schedule has helped us, and France sweeping the group will also help. We can keep our noses in-front of the Netherlands until they come to Greece in our 2nd last match. A lot of water to go under the bridge until then, but if we take care of business v Ireland (not easy) and Gibraltar we are in with a fighting chance to pinch 2nd spot.

G'day mate!!! Throw another schnitzel on the barbie

we have one of those in here. would you mind taking him off our hands?

That was my niece who scored both goals today!!!! She just recently joined the club from the States. Super proud of her!

If we can maintain a winning form, stay injury free, then I believe we can reach 20-25 in the FIFA classification within 12-18 months, about where Sweden, Serbia, Poland and Ukraine are at the monent. Teams that I think we can compete with. We will need a good Euro qualifying campaign, get to Euro 2024 and pick up some good results, and then consolidate our position in League B. Hopefully some of our younger players can come through, and shine.

And no poison players. All these players have heart.

G'day m8, throw another koala on the barbie!

Alright boys I thought we’d get a recap of events and our situation going here. The Gibraltar game was very exciting in my opinion and is a manifestation of the progress the team has made under Poyet. Time and time again we have lost or drawn against these minnows and hurt our qualifying chances. We have always fought the higher level teams much harder compared to the lesser teams in our groups and it’s been these lesser teams that have been what truely have held us back from qualifying the last 10 years. Look at our last campaign we start with a shock draw against Spain only to then draw with Kosovo and Georgia. We even beat Sweden our first match against them but these two draws were too much to overcome. Under Poyet we are treating the minnows like minnows. We attack attack attack and not let a team like Kosovo boss us all over the field. The nations league last year was a great example of how far we have come. I know these teams all suck but that’s not the point. The point is we are finally starting to beat the teams we are supposed to beat, and when it comes to qualifying for an expanded Euro competition ( excluding our difficult group this year since we are pot c) we have no excuse not to qualify if we beat the teams we are supposed to beat. The Lithuania game was a mix bag. It’s a friendly but I still would have like to have us win bcuz it’s LITHUANIA. However, the way we played was positive. We were attacking non stop and yes we did get unlucky at times. Overall I think even that game was a step in the right direction. If we fail to qualify from the group and the NL playoff for a 24 team euro will be a massive embarrassment, but we’ve been nothing short of embarrassing for the last 9 years. We have to beat Ireland both times and it is as simply as that. The Dutch are historically an extremely inconsistent team. We can 100% catch them on an off day on one of our games with them. The optimist in me and our history against big teams leads me to quietly believe that we will shock France and tie one of our games. They just lost a World Cup final. That has to be emotionally draining and while they got up for their game against the Netherlands, I could definitely see them on cruise control during their second game against us. BUT AND I STRESS BUT none of this matters if we don’t beat Ireland. Plain and simple. They will play more open against us than they did against the Dutch in their 0-1 loss. We have to capitalize on that. I will cry tears of joy if I can watch my beloved Ethniki play a World Cup game here in the states in 2026, and qualifying for this euro and boosting our ranking and confidence is the first step in this goal getting realized. I am starving for us to be in major tournaments again. I remember screaming on the couch crying with my dad when Samaras scored that penalty against Ivory Coast. I desperately wish to feel that again and I cautiously believe that we have a chance at that with the direction we are going. PAME HELLAS

EPO officially announces that the Stadio Agia Sophia aka OPAP Arena will be the new home of the national team! Should be much better than OAKA.

Konstantelias should definitely get a call up and a cap. Has been killing it in the league and is getting a lot of publicity from teams in England, Spain and France. He has what a lot of Greek players lack, the balls to take on defenders one on one

Fantastic of Biseswar to get Schenkeveld sent off. He'll miss Asteras, so hopefully that has an effect. A win, draw, or loss by 1 in a few days and we have an easy semi-final before reaching the cup final. At the moment we're in 3rd place, points shown below. If Olympiakos draws (it's 0-0 at halftime now), we'll stay in third place. PAO 45 AEK 44 PAOK 39 OLY 39 (assuming current result stands) Have some faith in Lucescu. We have a month that looks to be shaky for Panathinaikos, followed by play offs. We can still win the double 😉

JVS? Someone might wanna tell Poyet that he's been replaced by the guy who he replaced. In all seriousness though would be extremely dumb to change coaches now, Poyet did a great job in getting the team to top the Nations League group. We are in a tough qualifying group for Euro 2024 but changing manager doesn't magically make France or the Netherlands more beatable. Poyet has earned the right to see qualification through, including the playoffs.

Turkey loses to Faroe Islands 2-1.

#49 after yesterday's new release.

When greeksoccer.com shut down, the alt-right members (which were broadly Olympiakos supporters) started their own cesspit forum, where as far as I know they still circle jerk today

4 out 4 wins in 10 days. No goals conceded. Poyet couldnt have asked for a better start. Players can now have a good break. I like Poyet. He's old school, a little bit crazy. The real tests are coming in the next Euro qualifiers, but the way team is playing, gives me the belief that we can compete and beat stronger nations. I would love to see this Greece team in Germany in 2024.

Looks like we are going to gain 20.1 pts and jump up 7 positions from 55 to 48. Live rankings https://football-ranking.com/fifa_rankings

JVS started well but then he regressed. His game management & subs at times were baffling and cost us a few games. Siopis had another great match. His work rate is incredible.

what A goal!!!!’ And that’s why you start Giakoumakis over Pavlidis!!!!

9 Points after 3 games. I cant remember the last time that has happened for us. The finals comes down to Sunday a win and we dominate this group. It may be way too early to say this but this team has a different feel under Poyet, they look more confident, they are better defensively and as we can see they are still creating chances. This is the most optimistic i have been about this team in a long time. I fully understand the quality of teams we are playing but for the last 5 years we haven't been able to walk away with wins and look good doing it. I really hope this is the turning point for the Ethniki and we continue to improve while getting results. for the amount of times i have spoken bad about Bakasetas i have to now give him credit for his play at late and he's acting like a leader out there and is on fire for the NT right now. Lets keep it going and end this on Sunday with a win at home against Kosovo

You guys may like this podcast from Hellas Football https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/hellas-footy-pod/id1536595945?i=1000614612222

First MD of this series. Nice to start against minnow Gibraltar in Portugal. Konstantelias is the new diamond and Gus said allready he will be included in the squad. Every MD one country will play a friendly or Nation League match. The other match this MD is France vs the Netherlands. MD 2 will be Greece's "day off".

Next cycle's games : Greece - Ireland France - Greece Ireland - Gibraltar (Netherlands is not playing in June)

The matches between Ireland and Netherlands will determine our fate that's why its crucial we get 3 points at home against Ireland in June.

This line up would be so much better if Fortounis replaced Mantalos and Konstantelias replaced Pelkas..

Kourbelis is out injured and will miss these games. Reports saying that 8-9 players are locked in to start, they are: Vlachodimos, Baldock, Mavropanos, Chatzidiakos, Tsimikas, Siopis, Bakasetas, Mantalos, Fortounis. Question marks are over whether Pavlidis/Giakoumakis starts and Konstantelias/Masouras on the wing. Bakasetas, Mantalos and Fortounis could be played in a few different positions, just depends on how Poyet wants to go about it. Either way I think that team is probably the best we can put out, and it should have enough attacking talent to score a few goals and record a routine victory. https://www.sport24.gr/football/ethniki-elladas-ta-dyo-senaria-sto-myalo-toy-poget-gia-tin-endekada-me-to-givraltar.9982928.html

Even though this group is the group of death and chances of us qualifying are slim I really hope we can show progress and hold our own with the Netherlands and France. even the other teams will pose a challenge. It's unfortunate we got this group but until we start climbing the FIFA rankings these are the types of groups we can expect. We know the Netherlands and France will most likely only drop points to each other and i fully expect them to sweep through the other teams and at worst maybe getting a draw against us or Ireland. As we've said before our best and probably only realistic chance to qualify is through the Nations League that's why we would also want Turkey to qualify directly to avoid them as they would be our toughest challenge. But for now lets start of strong and bury Gibraltar.

Messi is now finally a Worldchampion! 🐐

EPO have correctly come out and backed Poyet

Greece need to get back into the major tournaments. Starting with Euro. Watching World Cup would be so much more exciting Greece were in it I miss that run of qualifying we had... It's been too damn long.

And that’s why he lost his job at PAOK

You came into the game thread to say how much you don't care? Seems like a waste of time to me.

I mean not really. He was a stud. Dominating teams in Europe. However, when he went to England he was expected to preform right away. He didn't play well for a few games and then he barely got time after that. They didn't give him a real shot so they messed up his own development.

Mavropanos scored a 98th min winner for Stuttgart against Hertha Berlin in a 2-1 win. He also made a crucial clearance off the line with the scores locked at 1-1. You can see the clearance at 1.02 and the goal at 1.34 below.

I want NOTHING to do with ANYTHING that involves Saudi Arabia. The fact that Greece is considering this is an utter disgrace, in my opinion.

Congratulations AEK fans on your beautiful new home!

An incredible opening night in Agia Sophia 😍 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJYl5Qup1DY&t=48s

The winners of League C have been decided, along with Greece the other group winners are: Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhstan. These 3 along with Greece will be promoted to League B for the next edition of the Nations League. Furthermore, they are potential opponents in the event Greece doesn't directly qualify for Euro 2024, in the playoffs. Of course if any of those group winners qualify directly they would also be replaced with lower ranked nations in the playoffs, so we may end up avoiding them all together. As things stand assuming none of the 4 qualify directly, we would have to beat 2 of Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhstan to qualify for Euro 2024. The format is a one-off playoff game, 2 semis and a final with the winner gaining qualification.

He’s racist against young handsome Greeks.. According to that logic, @pashwouldnt have a problem cracking his starting 11

Made his debut last saturday in the Eredivisie for FC Twente. And scored his frst two goals for today in the ECL match against Cukaricki in Q3.

Everybody, 10 steps back... Looks like we have some Sydney royalty amongst us!

At this rate , the playoffs for our euro 2024 would be between Turkey, Greece, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. Would be the semi final and final. We should hope Turkey qualify directly , then Luxembourg would take their place. If we don’t qualify from groups directly, then surely we would beat out any of these 3 other teams

Of course the level of the competition isn't that great but I think Poyet is building on the good things JVS began early on, with the difference being that he has adapted the game plan to his players' abilities and not trying to play strictly possession football. He seems to have properly assessed his players and isn't asking for anything from any player that they can't deliver. He is also able read the game well and adapt to in-game situations and to make correct strategy changes and substitutions at the right moment.. I have to say that under Poyet I am starting to see why Bakasetas and Mantalos are usually starting for the NT....really much more substantial play from both compared to playing under the other coaches. This is probably what Skibbe & JVS saw during practice and penciled them in to the starting 11 most games only to disappoint. Imo Mantalos has had 4 of his best appearances for the NT. These 2 are now emerging as leaders on the field (and it's about time). Glad to see Giakoumakis get a goal as he has been sniffing around the past few games but not connecting. I think all the players rated between good to outstanding with my only complaint being that for some strange reason with Bouxalakis (who had a good game) starting, the back-pedaling was a little more pronounced than in the previous games. All in all I don't think we could have asked for more considering the management change.

Ya baby! Ellas!!

Man what a different feeling around this team.. Absolutely love it.. Poyets system is making us look like a real team for once…

I wonder if the reason that Bakasetas was playing well was the system he was playing under? In Turkey, he was rated pretty high...