Euro2004

Such a promising start has faded very quickly. They've looked terrible in recent game and Protasov has been sacked (way too soon to make such a rash decision in my opinion!) and Kofidis has been brought in as his replacement. Looks like Ira is in turmoil already

Although I agree that he's poor it's a little harsh to start a threat on the guy. :rolleyes: :P It's funny, because in Greece he's highly rated. Olympiakos fans think he's amazing. He's not the only one though. There are others that just aren't international level material either. Tzorvas, Avraam and Makos should never be seen wearing the NT shirt. (unless of course the improve significantly in the coming years). While Tziolis shouldn't be starting. There are others that are guaranteed starters that shouldn't be. Haristeas for instance has received a lot of criticism, but he's great aerially, works hard and is still a useful tool. So I believe he should still be used in a rotating system but shouldn't be the first name on the team sheet.

(from UEFA.com) GEKAS RACING ROONEY His four goals in Greece's 5-2 win against Latvia moved Fanis Gekas alongside Wayne Rooney as joint top scorer in European FIFA World Cup qualifying, but the striker said afterwards that "I could have done better". Team first The 29-year-old helped Greece maintain their hopes of reaching South Africa as Group 2 winners after defeating opponents who went into Saturday's game level on points with their hosts. "It was a good match for me, but what matters most is not my performance," said the Bayer 04 Leverkusen marksman after the encounter in Athens. "I don't care about goals and records as long as the team wins." Play-off target Latvia had good reason to fear Gekas, who had scored twice for Greece in a 2-0 win in Riga 13 months earlier, but they proved powerless to stop him despite ending the first half 2-1 up. "In the dressing room at half-time, we tried to encourage one another and we vowed to do everything in our power to turn the game around and get a play-off spot for the 2010 World Cup," said Gekas, whose side will be sure of at least finishing second in their section if they beat Luxembourg on Wednesday and will qualify automatically if Switzerland also lose against Israel. Bad morale The Larissa native's goals in Athens were a welcome lift during a season in which he has only appeared sporadically for his club. Thus far, he has contested merely four Bundesliga matches – three as a substitute – and two more in the German Cup, coming off to bench to fire his only domestic goal of the season against 1. FC Kaiserslautern. "It's very complicated for me and bad for my morale to be on the bench all the time at Leverkusen," he said. "Not playing regular club football makes me give my all for the national team." Impressive figures The striker continues to be grateful to coach Otto Rehhagel for keeping faith in him despite his club situation, but that decision has been more than vindicated. Gekas has scored 13 of Greece's 22 goals since UEFA EURO 2008™, and with 19 goals in 42 international games is closing in on Nikos Anastopoulos's national record of 29. His nine Group 2 efforts, meanwhile, mean he is level with Wayne Rooney as joint top scorer in European qualifying for South Africa, and since the Manchester United FC striker will miss England's final qualifier against Belarus through injury, Gekas can make the title his own when Luxembourg come calling in midweek. ===================================================== In terms of rumours, the Olympiakos newspapers are saying that Zico was very impressed with Gekas and wants him at Olympiakos. With the Fanis not playing much he may just be interested in a move.

Greece beat Portugal 2-1 today in a highly passionate game. The game was sloppy but it was a relief to come through it. Koutsianikoulis gave us the lead after merely 3 mins. Dimoutsos then hit the post before Giannis Papadopoulos missed a one on one. These were isolated instances in an otherwise sloppy first half. In the 2nd half Portugal were dominating possession. We couldn't find a rhythm and they won the midfield. K.Papadopoulos and Boukouvalas were superb at the back though and Portugal couldn't create a chance. On 81 mins Mitroglou went through on goal but miscontrolled the ball before shooting. We were punished as Portugal scored from a corner 3 mins later. In the final min of the game we won a free kick, Soiledis' delivery was met by K.Papadopoulos whose excellent header wonm the game for Greece at the death! Great result but the performance left something to be desired. The coach, Nioblias, believes we were sloppy because most of the young players aren't playing for their clubs and he called for them to be given a chance. In all honesty most of them deserve first team football anyway. With England surving a scare to beat FYROM 6-3(!) the table now looks like this: TEAMS..........Pld......W....D....L....PTS: Greece .........4.........3....1.....0....10 England.........3.........2....1.....0....7 Portugal........2.........1....0......1....3 Lithuania.......2.........0....1......1....1 FYROM..........3.........0....1......3.....1 We need at least draws in England and Portugal and we'll make it. :gr:

Greece just drew 1-1 with England in Tripoli. Overall it was a very disappointing result for Greece because the boys were the much better team and Mitroglou had a nightmare game, missing 3 one on ones. Ninis was brilliant, showed real class at times. England scored after 5 mins. Greece then took control and dominated possession. Ninis running the show and Dimoutsos looking very neat. Boukouvalas was also great at left back. Defensively Greece were poor though. K.Papadopoulos had a terrible game, Rose tore him apart for England's goal and he looked very heavy-legged throughout. Pliatsikas was certainly the worst player on the pitch, he gave the ball away cheaply when the scored and he didn't put a foot right in the entire game. Because we were so poor at the back they were able to create 2 big opportunities (excluding their goal). England didn't do anything else though and Greece missed 5 very good chances, 2 of them sitters. Overall Greece will be very disappointed not to have won. The team needs to tighten at the back.

Group 9Teams Pld W D L GF GA Pts Greece 2 2 0 0 4 1 6 England 1 1 0 0 2 1 3 Portugal 0 1 0 0 2 1 3 Lithuania 1 0 0 2 1 3 0 F.YROM 2 0 0 2 2 5 0 portugal beat lithuania 2-1 so the table now looks like this. We must beat England at home now

England scored an 83rd min penalty to win the game away in Skopje by 1-2. England had to come from behind and the table now looks like this. Group 9 Teams Pld W D L GF GA Pts Greece 2 2 0 0 4 1 6 England 1 1 0 0 2 1 3 Portugal 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Lithuania 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 F.YROM 2 0 0 2 2 5 0 If FYROM held on it would have been a great result for us. Now the game at home to England is crucial, we must get a result, in reality a win. With Ninis, Papastathopoulos and Pliatsiakas in the men's team we'll be weaker than usual but hopefully the boys can pull it out the hat and win the game.

No he's not that Fernandinho

Itanje is impressive but Kalac is 37 and was on his way back to the A-league. Kavala offered him a 2 year deal. He's a poor keeper though and Itanje will def start. I would have thought it would've been smarter to spend the cash on an outfield player rather than Kalac.

Crazy, surely there was enough money for a loan deal. Of the CL money that's now been guaranteed they couldn't bring one left winger? Kokkalis has always been the same. The former French international just signed on loan at Rangers from PSG. He's have been a vast improvement. Zenden and Lovenkrands aren't great but they'd be decent for Olympiakos and are available for a free. These aren't moves that would have broken the bank.If Olympiakos don't win the league and when Olympiakos finish bottom of the CL group and the fans turn on the men in charge, what will be the reaction? Will Kokkalis not blame Ketsbaia and sack him?

I'm amazed that you haven't signed anyone. It's pathetic. Ketsbaia will be blamed and sacked before Christmas, but in reality there's very little he can do with your squad.

they have to show interest first though

Well Fortune was dropped for the Champions League and he responded by scoring 2. Don't get me wrong, Samaras is the most talented of the Celtic forwards (McDonald is a better finisher but Samaras is a better all round forward), but that's why he's so frustrating.Hopefully he moves to West Ham, Cartlon Cole is the most improved Premiership forward by far and may Samaras could benefit from that sort of coaching.

I like Papasta but he does have a tendency to neglect his defensive duties.

Papastathopoulos played in today's 3-2 win over Roma. Here's what Goal.com had to say: Papastathopoulos: 6- He broke forward to support the attack well and was unlucky with his long range effort, but often neglected his defensive duties.

Well as far as the manager is concerned Fortune and McDonald are the starters. But Samaras had a great start to the season so he started him against Arsenal. He was considered ineffective in that game though and got subbed and he's lost his place again

Well he's not starting him.

It was reported today that West Ham are interested in Samaras. Unfortunately Charlie Nicholas (former Celtic and Arsenal legend) was on the panel and joked "i hope so!". When asked whether that means he doesn't rate Samaras, Nicholas laughed and said "I'd drive him (to West Ham) myself". That's kind of harsh in my opinion. Samaras may be inconsistent and lazy but he was their 2nd top scorer last season and was out for 2 months (statistically their top scorer) and Fortune and McDonald are hardly world-beaters.

I'm not anti-Samaras. I don't think he's completely shite like some other posters here think, and I don't deny that managers have their favourites. But Samaras has had a fair chance wherever he's been. Unfortunately though he's failed to maintain any level of consistency

The latest names to be linked are: Newcaslte's left winger and the Argentine international: Joonas Guttierez. He's not too disimilar from Leto. He's big, strong, quick and explosive. He runs with the ball well but isn't the most technical of players. His decision making and crossing aren't great but his work rate is very high. He could be a good player. Inter's Mancini: A very skillful left winger that likes to drift into the middle so he can play as a play-maker or forward. He doesn't want to come to Greece though. Napoli's Denis: a striker that had an excellent goalscoring record in Argentina but has failed to make an impact in Italy. Pantelic: Former Hertha striker and Croatian international striker that is now available on a free transfer

Christain Karembeau has supposedly signed a contract with Arsenal to work as a scout. I remember rumours suggesting that he'd sign as a director of football with Olympiakos. Oh well. I suppose this will be good for Greek football though, I assume Karembeau still has links with Greece so he'll be able to draw attention to some of our top class prospects: Torosidis, Ninis, Soiledis, etc.

Strachan was very successful at Celtic. Sven was also successful at Man City (look what happened to them when he left!). Mowbary got his team playing great football winning promotion before going down with pride. There was little he could do with the West Brom squad. If he'd flopped he wouldn't have been given the Celtic job.We've had these conversations before on these boards. Some people love Samaras others don't. I'm trying to base my opinions on the facts and the fact is he's been consistenly dropped throughout his career because of his inconsistency amd poor work rate

To be fair he was dropped by Strachan so it has nothing to do with Mowbary having favourites. Samaras isn't a bad player and when he plays well he's very good but too often he's invisible. He'll be hot for 2 games and cold for 10. It's not a coincidence that every managed he's played under (Pearce, Sven G.E, Strachan, Rehaggel, and Mowbary) have dropped him from the starting line up. He simply isn't consistent enough and he's never played well against very strong opposition. Name me one game against an excellent side when you can say he was very good.

It's not just the brilliant individual goal that he scored, he was brilliant in general. The game was quite even when he came on, but once he was introduced with about 10 mins to go there was only going to be one winner: Celtic. He was dominated Dinamo's defence. If he played like that every week he'd be class

It depends on what relationship Mendez has with the team. If Karembeau approached a French player or Kovacevic a Serb on behalf of the club, for instance it would be understandable. The question is who is Mendez?I don't rate Gonzalez to be honest but Mancini, who has also been linked, would be a major coup. A genuine BAM. Apparently Mancini's wife isn't keen on coming to Greece <_< but the player has already rejected West Ham and the only other team that's shown a keen interest is Zenit. Now St. Petersberg is supposed to be a lovely city, but surely she wouldn't prefer a move to such a cold country. Particularly when the Zenit fans are notoriously racist and Mancini is black. So I think Olympiakos should continue to press for him as opposed to Gonzalez