DUDE

I've told you before, if you want to learn about football you've got to watch more than just British football. :P None of the teams outside the top 2 in Scotland are as good as Aris, Panionios, Larissa, or PAOK. Queen of the South just got KO'd of the UEFA Cup by the Someshitdansihteam FC that Olympiakos' worst ever B team just beat comfortably in Denmark for goodness sake. Go check the head to head record between the Scottish and Greek teams and see the discrepancy. Samaras is doing well, bravo tou, but we can't get over excited until he starts replicating that form against strong opposition, i.e. in the CL or for the NT. Until he does that we can't get over excited. He had a good start to his Celtic career last year in the league, but didn't score in the CL or for Greece. This year his first CL game was against Aalborg(!) and he drew a blank. When he starts performing consistently at the top level we can start getting excited, until then we have to conclude that he's average.

In football there's opinion and there's fact and I respect opinion. If you say La Liga is better than the Premiership then I'll disagree with you, but I'll respect your opinion. If however you say that the Fijian league is better than Serie A then I'll simply dismiss your opinion. This is one of those situations. If you take out Celtic and Rangers the Scottish league is weaker than the Cypriot league so I can't even dignify your implication that there isn't much difference between the Scottish league & the Greek league. It's a ridiculous comment.

you could also argue that all the greece based players in our NT are also up against weak opposition week in week out, you could add dellas to that list too. at least playing for celtic gives him more exposure. i think its unfair to call him average just because he's playing in a poor league, haristeas is average not samaras. torosidis and ninis play in a poor league also but i believe they are decent not average players. Please don't try and compare the Scottish league to the Greek league because that is just ridiculous.

He's also against very weak opposition in Scotland.

I agree with... Olympiakos hasn't made the CL because of stupidity... Kokkalis' stupidity.

Typical!!! I guess people will blame Valverde here too!! <_<

:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: I heard that tomorrow's headline is going to be: Poios Baresi?... Avraam Papadopoulos reee!! :LOL:

Don't undermine skill events re file. Athelticism is a celebration of nature, skill events are a celebration of nurture. And a gold for Russia! :LOL:

The Olympics were conceived by the Greeks to display "Polemikes technes", so how can you justify saying that Equestrian shouldn't be in, but Volleyball should?I think they both should be in, I'm just saying I don't understand your logic. Rogge wants to ban boxing from the Olympics too. That's stupid! All the Ancient games should be kept in: Equestrian, Archery, Track & Field, Boxing, Wrestling, etc. Shooting is a modern evolution of Archery so that should stay in too... maybe I'm a bit biased though with regards to shooting because Cyprus are so good at it :P And how dare you undermine beach volley? All those beautiful girls diving around in their bikinis... I refuse to let you take that away from me! Some of these sports just need a revamp: boxing needs to bring in a new points system because this one is a joke and enables too many "fixes". The sports that should be eliminated are: BMX racing, baseball & softball, that's it. Keep the rest. But you know there's a rule which enables the host of the Olympics to propose a new sport? Well rumours in the UK are that the new sport will be Cricket or Rugby! :LOL: That really would kill the Olympics!

This is probably the most ethnocentric post I've ever read! :LOL:

Well done to Big Sam (as he's now known in Scotland) for his 2 goals but we still need to see an improvement. The first goal was nice. Good movement and great composure. On 60mins he should have made the keeper work more by opening up his body and shooting with his right foot instead of his left, but he did well to get the chance. The 2nd goal was a beautiful move but he was very lucky to score. He needs to keep working on his finishing but there's no doubt that he is improving! Bravo tou. He should be aiming for at least 20 goals in the league this season.

He's one of my fav athletes too. What a nice, humble man. A complete antithesis from previous American track stars like Maurice Green or Justin Gatlin. He's a great role model and it's a shame he couldn't take gold in at least one event.

I just hope the FYROManians don't get more medals than us. Otherwise, they'll start saying that they invented the Olympics. :LOL: :LOL:

They're all doped... we've just had the most that have been caught.

That's a very defeatest argument and is simply making excuses re file.Why are Olympiakos in a transitional period again? There was no need for it. It's impossible to be in a transitional period 3 times in 5 years. The fact is, whenever Olympiakos start to build a decent foundation, those crazy bastards that run the club destroy the fabric of the team. The answer is not to give Valverde a chance to build in the UEFA Cup. The answer is for Olympiakos fans to start demanding a team that will be in the last 16 of the CL every year! The only way to do that is to start protesting... Demand that Kokkali will either act professionally and build a team that will be kept as a foundation for a few years, or, sell the club like PAO fans did with Vardinoyianni. Trying to convince yourself that UEFA Cup football is a good thing is definitely not the way forward. Not a defetest attitude at all. The problem lies in management as you said. I'm simply saying that Olympiakos is not deep enough to compete year in and year out. Their youth program is week and there is no direction. They need to have a foundation and go from there. I like the coach. HE is trying to build a foundation. The team got results under lemonis, but there was ugly soccer out there. Give this guy time.Having the fans complain in order for the team to make improvements is not the way to go. THe impatience of the fans is the problem. Kokalis makes knee jerk reactions based on his mood that day and in order for him to appease the fans so they keep on buying his merchandise. Best way to stick it to an owner is to stop caring about the team directly. Don't go to the games, don't buy merchandise. But file mou can't you see that Lemonis was probably sacked to appease the fans? So what if the football was ugly? Chelsea and Liverpool's football is ugly. So is Milan's, and so was Greece's in 2004. Wouldn't you want to replicate this success? We are not Barcelona or Arsenal. We will never win anything by being the most flamboyant football team. We need to develop a good defence with the ability to counter-attack dangerously... we started to acheive this last year. When you have a good foundation, you build on that, you don't dismantle it.Up until January, the whole of Greece was calling Ledesma the "key" to Olympiakos' problems. He then got injured, had a quiet finish to the season, so he gets sold? Cesar was our best defender in the CL... the only player (along with Belluschi) who can hold his head up high after the peformance at Stamford Bridge. And he's replaced with a defender who's nothing more than a decent level SL player? Perhaps these players are replaceable though... the one player that is irreplaceable is Lua Lua. He offered this team so much. The only difference between Lua Lua and a similar style of player in the world's elite teams, i.e. Robbie Keane at Liverpool, Robin Van Persie at Arsenal, etc. is consistency. Keane and RVP will get more goals over the course of the season and that earns them the big moves. In terms of general talent Lua Lua is just as good, and that's why I was saying we should sign him before we were even linked with him. The fact is consistency isn't such an importance factor for Greek teams. It doesn't matter if Lua Lua only gets 10 goals a season because as long as Olympiakos have another consistent goalscorer like Kova, the team will challenge for the title. What we need to make strides are big game players, because Olympiakos' season is determined by that handful of big games... He scored a stunner in the 4-0 win over PAO, he was unbelievable in every game he played in the CL, and the games that he missed were catastrophic = Aek away, Chelsea away, etc. So it is clear that a player like Lua Lua must be kept at all costs. So when it became evident that he would be forced out, the fans should have taken to the streets and protested. Forcing your best players to leave the club isn't how you go forward. Yes the football wasn't consistently brilliant and the team had weaknesses, so what a chairman/manager is supposed to do, is try and plug those weaknesses. Imagine last season's squad, plus an extra 3 or 4 players in problem areas: A centre-back (Tal Ben Haim - Chelsea = A brilliant centre-back who is now at Man City), a left winger (Gutierrez - Mallorca = Explosive and direct, very similar to Lua Lua. He's now at Newcastle but would have been perfect in our counter-attacking team), a goalkeeper (Kovac - who we have signed) and a centre-forward (Diogo - Portuguesa & Sosin - Anorthosis, and the squad would have been sorted. It's the chairman that is the disease in this club, and it is the fans fault for not dealing with that disease.

That's a very defeatest argument and is simply making excuses re file.Why are Olympiakos in a transitional period again? There was no need for it. It's impossible to be in a transitional period 3 times in 5 years. The fact is, whenever Olympiakos start to build a decent foundation, those crazy bastards that run the club destroy the fabric of the team. The answer is not to give Valverde a chance to build in the UEFA Cup. The answer is for Olympiakos fans to start demanding a team that will be in the last 16 of the CL every year! The only way to do that is to start protesting... Demand that Kokkali will either act professionally and build a team that will be kept as a foundation for a few years, or, sell the club like PAO fans did with Vardinoyianni. Trying to convince yourself that UEFA Cup football is a good thing is definitely not the way forward.

I was disappointed with Devetzi's performance. Of the 6 jumps she had 4 disallowed :blink: Pity.

This is a catastrophic games so far!

I don't think he is in Greece to collect a pension. Anorthosis also wanted him and rumours are we offered more money, and he's apparently good friends with Ketsbaia so that would have been another motive for signing. Hence the only reason to join a Greek team would have been (1) to join a more prestigious and competitive league, (2) if he's serious about making the UEFA Cup with AEL next year, because Ano are fighting for CL football with UEFA Cup football as an insurance policy. So I'm sure he's serious about his move to Greece. Aris would have been the most logical move imo. All those South Americans would have helped him settle and the style of play may have suited him too. It's great for the league though to see all of our teams strengthening. PAOK are looking pretty good and so are ARIS, so we should see a great battle for the UEFA Cup this year again.

Very true.

We may get a medal in the long jump.For those interested, Cyprus could get a medal in the high jump.

Larissa beat Anorthosis to the signing of Peruvian international Nolberto Solano from West Ham on a free transfer. Excellent signing. He's good technically, a great passer and a free kick specialist. He'll do well for AEL.

Diogo's considered in many quarters to be the next big thing in Brazil, even better than Pato. From what I've seen he seems like a very good forward, but not spectacular. He is certainly a more exciting option than Haristeas though.

What do you mean it's him that you want?!??!YOU REMEMBER THAT THE NEXT TIME YOU'RE BEGGING FOR LOVIN'!