La Mendel

We need Malezas

Icelands head trainer was Lagerbäck. During his tenure they reached the World Cup playoff in 2013 and qualified to Euro 2016. The Finnish golden generation was IMO Litmanen Hyypiä Forssell Jääskeläinen and Co (2004-2006) but they achieved nothing. Perhaps Finland can repeat the performance of Northern Ireland between 2014-2016 tho. Finnish head coach Kanerva was in 2015 only a caretaker manager. They sacked their former head coach Paatelainen, and didnt find a new coach yet. His statistics were quite good then (3 wins, one against us in Athens, 2 draws zero losses). Then they had a Swedish coach who couldnt win a single game (out of thirteen). In 2016 Kanerva was appointed again, and he has already 10 wins beside 5 draws and only four losses. He may achieve something with this team, you are right. But Im afraid they will qualify via Nations League if they will.

The money could be found presumably under the mattresses of Grammenos and his ilk.

Yes, Leonardo Jardim would be great! He was coach of Olympiacos so he knows Greek football rather well. Also he adopts usually a defensive style that would fit us.

A very small chance. Torontoblue is right, Finland isnt good enough to do that.

Unfortunately Agonasport says Skibbe will apparently receive one more chance from Grammenos: http://www.agonasport.com/agonasport-allnews/reports-suggest-skibbe-could-receive-final-chance

Guys I know its irrelevant but a hilarious incident happened today. I googled the word "Skibbe" cos I wanted to see whether he had gotten the sack or not and a title of an article really freaked me out: "Skibbe gets 30-day continuance". However, it was about some town supervisor who had to appear before the court "on a felony drunk-driving charge".

As you said Villas-Boas is not a cheap trainer. I think they want somebody in the line of Iordanescu Daniil Markarian Tsanas and Co.

I hope in reality they have a better candidate than those mentioned in the press.

Sack Skibbe!!!

I wanted Tziolis called up during Ranieris tenure. I guess it was Markarian. Yes, I clearly remember now that he was in the starting XI against Poland which was the last game of Katsouranis for the Ethniki. Katsouranis was the best player on the pitch while Tziolis was... well, good enough. To be fair, he didnt play against Faroe Islands when we lost to them under Markarian. And he didnt play against Hungary.

I thought that he could be the solution. Not a Rehhagel, of course, but a reliable head coach. *headdesk*

I always supported Skibbe. Until the Saudi Arabia game. Even after our win in Tallinn, I thought he could perhaps manage it and make us qualify for the 24-teams new Euro. But its clear we must get rid of him, the sooner the better. Unfortunately, those who have always doubted have been right all along.

You mention Ventura and the playoff. He was sacked right after that game. Lets hope Grammenos will do the right thing...

On second thought, you are right. I was too strict on Pelkas. More engine-like players in the Ethniki! Gone are the good old days with Karagounis, Katsouranis and Salpingidis. Even the tenacity of an Avraam or Maniatis would be great now. Some of these new blokes are so listless spineless etc. etc. as if they wouldnt give a F*** for the NT and the fans.

First goal was hilarious. Tzavellas looked like a clown.

Nothing can be worse than Ranieri. I agree with you though in all but this.

We all hope he will be.

Ive probably broken the record for amount of times using parentheses (8 in 9 sentences).

Skibbe should be sacked ONLY because of frequently using Koulouris. Dammit, Karelis was even on the bench. This guy (Koulouris) isnt ripe for the Ethniki, possibly he never will be. Skibbe has tried to use Rehhagels blueprint (Otto literally gave him some advice years ago) and has thus opted for the "closed club", an idea of Ottos, that means he selected 16-17 players as a core who would be always called up (except theyd be injured, suspended etc. etc.) and the extra 7-8 spots would be given to in-form players. This was the idea. But Rehhagel was a genius. Skibbe, however, selected quite the wrong guys as members of the closed club. He dropped Siovas off, he chose Bakasetas (an average CAM and not a born fighter, to put it mildly), Tzavellas, Tziolis (how can somebody choose him instead of Maniatis? the latter has at least a proper club, not to mention his pace and work rate, while Tziolis plays for a holiday Saudi team), Kolovetsios (only as a squad member), Oikonomou, Vellios, Diamantakos, and recently has chosen Bouchalakis, Kourbelis, and worst of all, Koulouris. Inexperienced young pussies, glittering mediocre players who cannot really hustle (Bakasetas Mantalos Pelkas, Im looking at you), even something in the line of Avraam Aravidis Maniatis Zaradoukas (who are in all probability past it) would have been more difficult to beat.

Skibbe gave an interview before the game: http://www.agonasport.com/agonasport-allnews/kanerva-knowledgeable-on-greece-skibbe-aiming-for-at-least-a-point A particularly interesting snippet: "I never said that we’ll play in a defensive manner. In Tampere, we will try to push higher up the field, press the opponents and have a good balance." That means we will struggle again to play some "balanced" attacking football. Lets hope the Finns will open up a little. They will practically win the group if theyll win. Maybe they are inclined to play a little more aggressive before their fans at home (it would be silly for them ofc). Can you imagine that the first half of our win against Hungary will be repeated in Helsinki? We will try to push but wont get as much as two or three shots on goal while our adversaries will develop their counterattacks? (Remember in the first half our attacks wernt more threatening than Hungarian attempts at counterattacking!)

Perhaps Mitroglou, Fortounis, Christodoulopoulos, Tsimikas or even Karelis can somehow score one and our defense can shut out Finnish efforts. Lets hope we will prevail (although I have misgivings).

This will be my last rant about the Friday game: we won practically because of the bad decision of the Hungarian head coach. After the first half Hungary opened up a bit, they took more risk. The result was that they gave our attacking players a chance. After the 50th minute we looked a bit livelier than before. Mitroglou was almost invisible in the first half. If they would have stuck to their defensive approach in the second half, the game could have been easily ended as a nil nil draw (because if Mitroglou would have been rendered as inactive as he had been in the first half, Skibbe would have changed him early on for a worse attacker, Koulouris, lessening our chances for finding a goal). They took some risk, thus losing their advantage (it would not have been THAT difficult, just giving us the ball and sitting back) and allowing us to win (our players are footballers of a higher quality than those Hungry blokes). I guess the moral of this is an extension of what Bernard Shaw said in Man and Superman: even a stupid general can win battles when the enemy's general is a little stupider.

Kourbelis is out, Tziolis will probably start instead of him: http://www.agonasport.com/agonasport-allnews/injured-kourbelis-to-miss-finland-showdown

Lets start a new topic for discussion about the Monday game.