Blackhawk

Superleague has voted to award the league sponsorship to Savvidis's Dimera Media Holdings for the next two seasons. Dimera will pay 2.25 mil for this season and 2.75 mil next season. It's quite laughable for a league to only get a sponsorship for 2.25 mil Euro.

I don't think Jairo would have made any difference. He's not setting things on fire at Giannina either. Campos is not in form and needs to sit few games out in order to regain focus and overcome any physical issues that he might have. Also, since the beginning of the season he must be the most fouled PAOK player on the roster, which I think is taking it's toll. I am very worried about the return game with Qarabag in two weeks. This looks like the same set up as last season with Krasnodar. Qarabag is a dangerous team and will play for a win at Toumba. Also they were missing three starters yesterday. They will have a full squad in two weeks. If we don't take that game seriously we will pay for it. We need to win that game.

Mystakidis and Klaus are ok and took part in today's practice in Athens. Tzavellas also joined the team for limited practices, but will not play on Sunday.

VS MATCHUP: PAOK Thessaloniki - AE Larisa COMPETITION: Greek Cup – Group Stage – Round 1 DATE: 26-October-2016 TIME: 17:15 GR (15:15 GMT, 09:15 CDT, 01:15 AEDT next day) CITY/STADIUM: Thessaloniki – Toumba Stadium (28,703) REFEREES: Ananias Fotiadis (Serres) - Nikolaos Koutoulis (Serres), Spyridon Vasilopoulos (Evros) TELEVISION: OTE Sport (Greece), Laola1.TV (Worldwide) TAPE DELAY: 15:15 CDT Antenna Satellite (USA, Canada), 07:15 AEDT Antenna Pacific (Australia) PAOK – AE Larisa Greek Cup History: 1984-1985: 1:4 (56. Skartados-p) - Attendance: 24,994 (Final – played at OAKA) 1990-1991: 3:0 (Karageorgiou, Lagonidis, Borbokis) - Attendance: ? (Quarterfinal – Leg 1) 2003-2004: 1:1 (10. Giasemis) - Attendance: no fans (Ambelokipi Stadium (Round 1 – Leg 1) GAMES: 3 WINS: 1 TIES: 1 LOSSES: 1

That's not really why we lost. The team just did not show up for the game. There was no enthusiasm. The players did not care. They were just going through the paces waiting for the game to end. They expected the the game to be served to them on the silver platter. On the other hand Qarabag, which is a an average team, came in and had a purpose in the game. They knew what they wanted and they went and got it.

1. Fiorentina 7 2. PAOK 4 3. Qarabag 4 4. Liberec 1

For the last 4 PAOK games I have not seen anything positive from this team. Not sure what can change.

Just like that. I got news for you. we are not qualifying from this group.

We are just pathetic. Have not created anything in 2nd half. Against a better team we would be down at least 3:0 by now.

Pereyra in for Thiam

And here it is.

We are just sitting back letting them attack. We are clearly going for a scoreless tie. We will pay for it at the end in my opinion.

Qarabag clearly the better team on the pitch. If we can hold on to a scoreless tie it will be great. They are playing with more enthusiasm. Our players just going through the paces waiting for time to go by.

Not a bad attempt by Campos

Big chance by Shakhov with overhead kick.

Crossbar by Qarabag. We are not playing well.

Fiorentina is beating Liberec 1:0 early.

Looks like the Azeri stream was region restricted when the game started. Yiankos's stream works well so far. Thanks Yianko.

Azerbaijani TV channel Idman TV will have the game. They are already televising pre-game warmup. Here is the link: http://www.idmantv.az/canli/idman-canli-yayim.htm Hopefully audio from Greek radio will be closely synced with video.

Aretopoulos, the member of Olympiakos Gate 7 fan club has been appointed as the ref for the game. There is bad history when he called our games. Most recent was the Tripoli game. God help us.

No Pereyra or Koulouris. Thiam as the forward. Also no Biseswar. Going with Shakhov. Looks like Ivic is going to at least secure the tie. Good lineup in my opinion considering upcoming games. I don't think we will lose. Most likely result is a tie. On the bench: Brkic, Malezas, Kitsiou, Charisis, Pereyra, Biseswar, Koulouris

Lineups:

Looks like Ivic will rest Klaus and play Pereyra as central forward. Also Mystakidis is sick with a fever. Hopefully it's not the same illness that Slovan Liberec players caught when they visited Baku.

Looks like Malezas is ready to go. Taking that into account I would change my defense and give Leovac who is not 100% fit some rest until Sunday: Matos - Varela - Malezas -Crespo I would prefer Crespo over Kitsiou on left side. I would keep him on the bench to give Matos some rest in 2nd half.

Not to be outdone by Marinakis's Alter Ego, Savvidis through his company Dimera has made an offer to Superleague to become the official sponsor of the league. His offer is for 2.5 mil per year for two years, which is 500K more per year than Marinakis offered. Superleague will hold an emergency meeting to decide if they will allow Savvidis's offer, since it came after the deadline for offers has passed. Couple thoughts on the matter: - it's clearly shows what a Mickey Mouse league Superleague is. For only 2.5 mil (or less) you can be the official sponsor - it's quite silly for a corrupted league such as Superleague and Greek soccer is to allow a majority shareholder of one of the teams to be the official sponsor of the whole league