js1000

scored twice today in leverkusens 3-3 friendly draw with wydad casablanca, its great that he's playing again and scoring because we're gonna need him against the swiss. funnily enough leverkusens other goal was scored by derdiyok who'll probably line up against greece for switzerland

time will tell but man utd will be challenging for honours (as olympiakos would be) owen is motivated by winning silverware so you'll see a different player at man utd than the one you saw at newcastle, he really didn't give a f u ck about newcatle but at man utd he will be awesome because of the effort he'll put in. it would have been awesome for greek football to attract a player like this but there was never any chance also his strike rate is awesome OWEN FACTFILE ENGLAND 89 games, 40 goals LIVERPOOL (Trainee - August 2004) 297 games, 158 goals REAL MADRID (August 2004 - August 2005) 40 games, 14 goals NEWCASTLE (August 2005 - July 2009) 79 games, 30 goals

Michael Owen is undergoing a medical at Bridgewater Hospital ahead of a proposed free transfer to Premier League champions Manchester United.http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...utd/8131801.stm seems he's good enough for man united but for many here not good enough for greek football :whistle:

JUST WON THE GERMAN CUP WITH BREMEN :gr: :nw: :nw: :tup: :nw: :nw: :gr:

playing regularly for bremen i'm surprised no one opened this topic sooner. on loan at preasant hopefully he'll get a permanent move in the summer

2 points firstly at what point did i say he was world class, all i said was well done for winning silverware.secondly, he's been at 3 foreign clubs. i don't think he flopped at heerenveen(hence a big money move to man city) and he's currently celtic's joint top scorer with mcdonald this season and bagged 2 trophies since he joined, i hardly think you could call that a flop.

basinas is lazy and was not loved by mallorca fans hence no contract extention.jonathan greening never played, samaras does. as for his contribution in the final here is a quote from his strike partner mcdonald it was hard not to play with a bigger guy when you get used to playing like that as they normally look after the high balls especially and I work off that, but we went with pace instead of height. "It was a bit more comfortable when Sammy (Samaras) came on, but I thought it worked with me and Aiden for a first time thing and you could see what the gaffer was trying to do." http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/t...tic/7946607.stm (full article) strachan went for a cautious 4-5-1 in the final instead of celtic's usuall 4-4-2 as for what he's achieved spl winner 2008 scottish league cup winner 2009 what greek player achieved more at club level(abroad) at his age ? i can only think of haristeas winning the german league and cup double with bremen in 2004(even though he was more of a bench player)

his form dipped after he came back from international duty injured, every striker goes through barren spells, he plays infront of 60000 fans every home game for a big club and is winning things, if you consider that an embarassment to greek football then i wonder what you make of players like nikopolidis and antzas and all the violence in greek club football and the consistent failure of greek clubs in europe. are basinas, haristeas and gekas(i'm not attacking geka i feel he's been unlucky just using him to make a point) who hardly play for their club but play for the NT an embarassment ? tzorvas sitting on the pao bench but is still percieved as the second best keeper in greece. and you call samaras who's just added the league cup to the protathlima he won last year an embarassment to greek football

came off the bench when the score was still 0-0 and played his part he also scored in the penalty shoot out in the semi final vs dundee united, his spot kick forced the penalties into sudden death had he missed celtic would have been out. fully deserves his winners medal.

CONGRATULATIONS GIORGIOS SAMARAS SCOTTISH LEAGUE CUP WINNER 2009 :nw: :nw: :gr: :tup: :gr:

on loan at cardiff city now. played twice so far 2-2 vs wolves where he made a terrible blunder to gift wolves a late equaliser and played in the 0-0 draw vs QPR

and basinas has joined him. gekas will do well at portsmouth i'm not so sure about basinas though gekas signs for 6 months loan, basinas has signed for 18 months

derbyshire is a really good player - if he can stay injury free. this is a top signing

had an outstanding game yesterday against premier league opposition http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/f...cup/7842637.stm

i see so its purely political reasons why you don't want him to play for greece. if he was say german or brazilian you'd have no problems with it. but because of the current politcal situation with the 2 countries (which was not caused by the player concerned) you don't want a player that could potentialy benefit greece. i'm sorry i can't get emotionally attatched to political situations and decide whether i like someone based on political climate, all i see is a player that might benefit greece.

my parents also taught me about alexander the great and other greek history plato etc etc, that doesn't make me a nationalist, if he benefits the greek national team then i say let him play, if he was anti greek he wouldn't want to play for greece. other nations benefit from foreign players its about time we did too, we missed out on castillo, if this player is any good i say let him play.

signed a load deal with championship side swansea and made his debut in saturdays 0-0 draw at doncaster

well it didn't work as inter failed to score, job well done as far as i'm concerned. :tup: also coming up against players of quality will only improve sokratis.

yellow card on 87mins and second booking on 90mins. i suspect a 1 match ban anyone see the game ?

i hope he keeps his place this boy needs matches

Well said.Btw, he banged in another 2 today in the cup, the second was a penalty. He's certainly in superb form. :tup: Let's hope he carries that forward against Moldova and Switzerland. i take your point you have to keep progressing and aiming high but what frustrates me is that players like haristeas lybe and salpi who are no where near as good as samaras do not get no where near as much flak as samaras, the moment he has a bad game the knives are out for him (lazy bad attitude overrated average etc). he deserves a place in the 11 vs moldova, i just hope otto gives it to him

so do the lower tier greek teams. like i said before we bash our best players and no matter how many he scores he never gets the credit he deserves

Highlights: Kilmarnock v Celtic http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/7628536.stm

work ethic alone is not enough you need quality, put me in the national team and my determination and work ethic would be incredible too, charisteas is at the peak of his career samaras is 23, as an 18 year old playing in holland how did his goal scoring rate compare with charisteas' when charisteas was playing in holland ? charisteas doesn't score enough what makes you think he'd score more in scotland than samaras ? why do we bash our best players like samaras and seitaridis, no matter how many goals he scores people will say its only scotland, what more can he do ?

It shows that this year's Olympiakos and AEK is miles behind last years Olympiakos and AEK... What's your point? Does that boost Samaras' acheivements? Scoring goals in the Scottish league will also put him in the shop window more than if he was scoring goals in Russia, but the Russian league is miles ahead. Every big footballing nation seems to have a feeder league. If a player plays excellently in Cyprus, the logical next step would be to move to Greece. A top North African player will probably be noticed by the French teams. The SPL is a British league and so the Prem (which is arguably the strongest league in the world) is the logical destination. Exposure has nothing to do with quality. Celtic and Rangers... I said that the Scottish league without the top 2 is weak. If anything this point adds weight to my claims. If Celtic and Rangers are soooo good and the rest of the league is s%$#! then of course a striker for Celtic is going to get goals. That doesn't make him top class. What makes him top class is to finish top scorer and produce internationally and in Europe (like Henrik Larsson used to do). Samaras is only scoring goals in Scotland. And Rangers got KO'd by Kaunas while Queen of the South lost to Someshitdanishteam FC. :LOL: What's your point? You are essentially arguing that the Greek league is rubbish, that's a different discussion though. We are talking about the strength of the Scottish league, not relative to Greece, but in comparison to the rest of Europe. After all, we are discussing the level of Samaras' acheivements. The fact is he's scoring goals in one of Europe's weakest leagues while playing for its strongest team. When he plays against top quality opposition he disappears. This is worrying for us as Greece NT fans. I don't know what your predictions were, where they that Spain and Man Utd would pick up the trophies? WOW I'm sure you were the only one to guess that! It shows that this year's Olympiakos and AEK is miles behind last years Olympiakos and AEK... What's your point? Does that boost Samaras' acheivements? no this does not boost his achievements, however it does seem to suggest that he's better off at celtic than in greece. Scoring goals in the Scottish league will also put him in the shop window more than if he was scoring goals in Russia, but the Russian league is miles ahead. Every big footballing nation seems to have a feeder league. If a player plays excellently in Cyprus, the logical next step would be to move to Greece. A top North African player will probably be noticed by the French teams. The SPL is a British league and so the Prem (which is arguably the strongest league in the world) is the logical destination. Exposure has nothing to do with quality. again this proves he's better off at celtic than playing in greece And Rangers got KO'd by Kaunas while Queen of the South lost to Someshitdanishteam FC. What's your point? You are essentially arguing that the Greek league is rubbish, that's a different discussion though. We are talking about the strength of the Scottish league, not relative to Greece, but in comparison to the rest of Europe. After all, we are discussing the level of Samaras' acheivements. The fact is he's scoring goals in one of Europe's weakest leagues while playing for its strongest team. When he plays against top quality opposition he disappears. This is worrying for us as Greece NT fans. the reason i brought up the greek league was to highlight that greek NT players play in greece vs weak opposition like toro and nini and they are not average, these are good players hence samara is not average just because he plays in scotland, you're too harsh on samara he played well in latvia(average opposition but thats not his fault) played well in turkey and never really featured in euro 08. (queen of the south are not in the SPL by the way) I don't know what your predictions were, where they that Spain and Man Utd would pick up the trophies? WOW I'm sure you were the only one to guess that! pure guess zero football knowledge.