Dean97

I’ve watched every Greece game and I know what I’m seeing. If you think Bakasetas is the answer for Greece then I wonder if you want the best for the national team… If you can’t connect your good club form to the national team then I don’t want them in the team, it’s simple. Bakasetas might do well in Turkey but most of his games for Greece haven’t been good enough for me. I’ve seen Ninis play for Volos and he still shows glimpses of the player he is known to be. Excellent passing and vision and reads the game well. Just like how Kyriakos Papadopoulos shows glimpses of brilliance when he played for the national team. Fetfatzidis came on for 5 minutes against Bosnia last year and made Greece win by making there defender score an own goal in the last few minutes. During that time he was doing very well for Aris and was never chosen after the Bosnia game. Again I watch every game the national team plays and I know what works and what doesn’t work. This team has a lot of determination and drive but lacks quality and talent in crucial positions the team needs. Especially in the midfield. Fetfa and Ninis have done a lot better for the national team in the past yet some people don’t acknowledge that and don’t look at that as something that should be brought back. Why not try them again and see what they can do?

You say Bakasetas is the best Greek player in Europe based on what exactly lol?? If anyone’s the most inform and that’s Greek it’s either Vlachodimos or Mavropanos. Mavropanos is having a great season in Germany and Vlachodimos is doing well in the champions league. What is Bakasetas doing? He’s inconsistent in the Turkish league… He’s been for the most part awful for Greece anyways. He was only captain under JVS and no one else. JVS even preferred Stafylidis captain but he got injured, so Bakasetas got it. You say there are 33 players better than Fetfa and Ninis but can’t even come up with 1 player better and back it up. You still haven’t given me a reason why Bakasetas and the others should play instead. Ninis has been playing as a CM for Volos for a while but only recently has started playing CAM again. We haven’t got a CM that is creative from deep in the midfield. Kourbelis, Zeca and Bouchalakis aren’t creative. Why is it so controversial when someone mentions Fetfa or Ninis on here…

Why not give them a chance and see what they got. What have Bakasetas, Mantalos etc, done for Greece. We haven’t made a tournament with them playing. Those 5 specific players I mentioned took us to major tournaments. If Mavrias could make this squad being a bench player in Cyprus then why not give Ninis and Fetfa another chance. They are also playing every week. I’m all for playing the young guys but when you have players like Kourbelis and Bakasetas in the side that can’t create chances then why not give Ninis and Fetfa another chance who are known to create chances and also have the skill too. They still have something to offer. Your acting like we have players better than them and we actually don’t. Give me a real reason why these players shouldn’t play in the team and why Bakasetas, Kourbelis etc should?

I agree 100%. These should be the guys that should lead the next generation. I believe these are the only experienced players that should be in the team.

I’m happy they are coming back, I hope we start fresh now and that every player will be looked at, even players that haven’t been on the radar for a while like Fetfa and Ninis. It won’t to give everyone a chance to see what they got. I know by mentioning those 2 players some people won’t like it haha. If you have quality at any age you should be considered in the team. Those 3 CBs are in there 30s now but they all still have quality so they should be involved.

Apparently by Monday or Tuesday.

I still think Sokratis can be an option for Greece. I’d take him in the team over Tzavellas any day. Might even put him captain, he has more leadership characteristics than any of our current players. He always gave 100% for Greece. But now that Mavropanos has been in great form and with Manolas and Siovas coming back I don’t know if he should be starting ahead of these players. I’d still have him in there though. Same with Kyriakos Papadopoulos if he’s healthy. He can still offer something too.

Should be at leoforos but Volos stadium is still decent.

That’s what I’ve heard aswell. Also he will apparently call up 40 players for the friendlies. Some of these players are players JVS banned from the team like Manolas, Kitsiou etc. Also he will call up players no one would expect. Sounds very interesting.

Let’s assume that everyone is back and available this is what I hope Poyet would do. He likes the 4-3-3. So I hope he picks something like this: Vlachodimos Masouras Manolas Mavropanos Tsimikas Galanopoulos Fortounis Alexandropoulos Masouras Giakoumakis Tzolis

I think player selections for Greece is the biggest thing we need to get right to be successful in my opinion. Let’s just say Greece were a club and not a country, and there were transfers and selling involved. The positions we would need to upgrade are RB, CDM/CM, and CAM. These specific positions along with the tactics that were employed by JVS hurt our chances of qualifying. Bakakis, Mavrias, Zeca, Kourbelis, Bouchalakis and Bakasetas are not good enough nor will they bring Greece to a major tournament again. I would drop these players completely out of the team just like how Samaris was dropped for the last couple of years. Also playing Stafylidis and Tzavellas at CB or in the the team in general doesn’t help either. As they are not needed as we have plenty of top quality CBs and LBs to choose from. What I’m hoping for is that Poyet, recognises that these positions need upgrading and the players have that played in these positions are not good enough. The only player I would keep from that group would be Bouchalakis as he can be more serviceable then the other midfielders we have. We need Fortounis and Galanopoulos to come back and start for this team. We need to try different options at RB until we get it right with like Kitsiou, Kotsiras and Masouras. Also if we play players in the right positions and play our most skilful and fastest players then we can get to a major tournament I believe.

I don’t know how Bakasetas is valued at that price. In my opinion he was one of the reasons we couldn’t beat teams less than us. Along with JVS tactics and other poor selections. I’ve noticed Sokratis is not even in the top 20 of most valuable Greek players in that list. I hope we bring back Manolas, Sokratis and Siovas so we don’t see players like Tzavellas in the squad anymore. I read Poyet was impressed with Ioannidis of PAO who scored against AEK this past weekend. He’s not a bad striker and should be given a chance but I see Giakoumakis and Douvikas ahead of him as our best strikers.

He plays in the Netherlands now which is a better league than the Polish. He should’ve gotten more chances at Olympiakos as the current RB isn’t good enough. If players like Rota, Mavrias and Bakakis got chances then why not give Masouras a chance. As he is better than all of them in my opinion. We also have other untried players like Kitsiou and Kotsiras.

I have to agree with this. Giannis Masouras has been so overlooked it’s crazy. He has speed for days and can play some football. For me he should be our starting RB. I agree also with Androutsos as back up.

I hope so, I would like to know what he has to say.

I believe we have good players but most of the current players that JVS selected when he was in charge were not starting 11 material. If you have a handful of players that shouldn’t be anywhere near the 11 then your not going to succeed. On top of that there was no plan or philosophy in place. The determination and heart was there but the plan and tactics wasn’t. It all comes down to coaching. You need a coach who realises his mistakes or which players shouldn’t be there and correct it when necessary. Playing Bakasetas all the time cost us in my opinion. Some people would agree with that and some wouldn’t. In modern football you can’t afford to have 1 weak player. We’ve had at least 3 in the 11. I’ve said in the past Greece hasn’t got players of top quality like Spain or Italy but if you want to succeed I believe you need to pick players that have speed and skill and take it from there. We’ve always had slow midfielders since 2004. We’ve always had questionable call ups too. Also why would you play 2 DMs against teams like Armenia and Lichtenstein? Maybe it’s time put someone like Mantalos who has lost his speed but still fast enough in a more deeper role in midfield. It might help us transition better in attack. Also Alexandropoulos who is a natural box to box player who can carry the ball well and is fast. We also need to give the banned players another chance. We need as much as possible. Also playing players in there correct positions will be a good start. If I was coach I would sort out the midfield and RB spot immediately.

It will be if he has done what the other 6 coaches have done in the past which was picking the wrong players, weird tactics/selections, poor 11s, and awful excuses… We’ve always handicapped ourselves with poor coaching and a federation who doesn’t care about the team. What do you expect when the budget is 500k for a coach? Your not going to get anyone special with that type of money. I’m willing to give Poyet a chance, as the first team selection will say everything. It doesn’t matter what he has or hasn’t achieved in the past, we were never going to get anyone of the highest caliber. At least Poyet has some sort of name in football and like I said, that first team selection he selects will say a lot.

I say that Poyet needs to focus on fixing our attack and bring everyone back to the team. That would be a great start. We need all the talent we can get, we can’t further limit ourselves since our talent pool is already limited. We need everyone available for us to succeed. Nothing has worked the last 10 years, I hope we get it right this time. I really hope this happens with us.

Spot on. You are correct in everything you said. I don’t think the EPO have any footballing knowledge, so Konstantinidis and Fyssas have been given the task of finding a coach. Seems like they are looking for an Italian coach. Just wondering why does it have to be Italian? We have 2 decent free agent managers in Michel and Valverde… Both Spaniards and would probably help Greece succeed. You can’t really go wrong. But people at the EPO have to know what direction they want to go in. Can’t just pick randoms again. Might aswell pick a Greek than pick a random foreigner who’s hasn’t done much in his career.

Well he’s coached in high quality leagues like la liga and serie A so I think he would know about good talent unlike JVS. But his overall win percentage is awful at only 30%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianni_De_Biasi We need someone who knows how to make this team win and score goals. We can’t score for the life of us, we have players that score for there clubs but we need them to do the same for Greece. Part of the problem is our midfield in my opinion.

Yeah your right but if you remember, the 2 seasons after that he wasn’t the same player and he had no injuries. He was still good but he wasn’t as consistent. I think he reached his peak that season in my opinion.

Yeah Fortounis work rate is an issue but he is by far our best midfielder we have. He can score goals too. His passing and dribbling is great. I remember one season which was I think the 2015/2016 season where he scored like 20+ goals and 15 assists. He was tremendous that season. That’s was the season Olympiakos beat Arsenal. In that season he was very consistent, he ran a lot and defended when needed. He was very active. His best season he’s ever had in my opinion. He also was impressive in the champions league. Every season after that he’s been good but in my opinion nothing compares to that 2015/2016 season he had.

You have a point but if we are comparing Fortounis to Bakasetas than I’d make Fortounis captain and starter over him. One player can’t carry a team but as we saw with his goal in that video where he took on the whole defence and keeper to score he can’t be ignored in the starting line up. Not many players can do that. Only Fetfa and Ninis have done something similar.

It’s outrageous that Bakasetas plays over him. Fortounis should be the captain and starting number 10 for Greece every time.

Can someone remind me what the actual problem was with Sokratis, Manolas and EPO. All I remember is that Manolas and Sokratis didn’t want Anastasiadis as coach. Did they feel betrayed by the EPO for sacking Skibbe at the time. When have the players called the shots? My opinion is that for a team like Greece who haven’t got world class and established players they need to do everything they can to have the best players on the field. That means that the coach and EPO have to work with these top players and keep them satisfied. Manolas and Sokratis know that the EPO aren’t running the team properly and they know that the team are not playing and being managed to it’s true potential. That’s what I got from it.