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La Mendel

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Everything posted by La Mendel

  1. He gave an assist yesterday against Gent (1-2 home loss) in the last round of Jupiler Pro League. All in all he scored four times and gave three assists in 14 games for Racing Genk. Thats not bad. Other Greeks who play in the same championship: Marinos started as Charleroi lost to Kortrijk (2-0). His team finished third. He missed only one game in the whole year and gave four assists. He should have been called up to the NT considering that he has been in top form in the last 10 months or so. Kitsiou was in the starting XI of Sint-Truiden as they lost at home (0-1), Goutas came off from the bench, Charisis was not even on the bench. Galitsios signed recently for Mouscron. He played four games in the season, they lost all of those games. This time he was on the bench as they lost to Eupen (4-0). His team finished 14th, they just avoided relegation. Kolovos played 12 games for Mechelen (no assists or goals, does anybody remember how he was considered a white hope for the future?). They finished last and got thus relegated. Koutroubis went recently to Standard Liege. He played four games and they didnt lose any of them.
  2. Skibbe should have banged the table, thats true. But EPO could have known Ethniki needs some friendlies. Surely they know a national team used to play friendly games to infuse younger players and try new tactics. I would say both of them are responsible. I wanted to add that imagine what Otto or Santos would have done if EPO wouldnt have organized a single friendly match in a year. Clearly they would have shouted the heads of EPO officials off.
  3. After we failed to qualify EPO is somehow galvanized into life and they start to organize friendlies for the NT... Good news but we would have needed friendly games in 2017 too! #istillcantbelieve #theonlyNTwithachancetoqualifythatdidntplayafriendlylastyear
  4. Glad to see there are some reasonable people (Laz, J1078). Yes, ranking is very important in our situation. And the NT shouldnt be an U-23 developing center. The best available players should start. But the head coach should try newcomers. Thats why we need friendly games. Talents shouldnt make their debut during crucial games (cf. Lykogiannis, Kourbelis, Donis). Siopis isnt ripe for the national team NOW. Same goes for Galanopoulos, Manthatis, Androutsos etc. Skibbe should call up Bakakis and Kone. And its a shame we couldnt utilize Maniatis properly. Possibly it was his last international campaign. He is smart and has a high work rate. He should have been employed as a defensive midfielder against Croatia (away) and on other occasions. I cant believe Skibbe benched him in favor of Tziolis. I dont know who could fill his role. He wasnt a very skilled player but could be very useful as a DM as he is considerably faster than Tziolis or Tachtsidis.
  5. Ajdarevic scores almost at once (he came off for Galanopoulos one minute ago).
  6. Tsyhankov gave them the lead in the fifth minute, if AEK cant at least equalize, the adventure of Greek teams will be possibly over!
  7. Dynamo is busy on winning, 1-0 in the 75th minute. Christodoulopoulos came in for Klonaridis and Araujo for Giakoumakis after an hour,
  8. Apparently both of them started in February 2005 in a 2-1 Premier League loss against Manchester United.
  9. I think maybe Chalkias and Skopelitis started together for Portsmouth in 2004.
  10. Karnezis started again as Watford won 4-1 versus Chelsea. He conceded a penalty of Eden Hazard. To Brklyngrk: He wasnt that bad against Croatia. Only the first goal was partly his fault (and partly that of Tzavellas). He was then rendered helpless by his defenders before the second, the third and especially the fourth goal when Stafylidis assisted literally one of the Croatians and he had a string of fine saves. Actually he was one of our better performers IMO.
  11. After starting four times in a row for his club, Sifakis was benched in the last round again (Samsunspor won 2-0 against Manisaspor).
  12. Aaand the new video has become unavailable as well. Sorry for linking all these contents that are constantly fading away.
  13. He scored in a 6-3 win against Metz, thats his third league goal in the season. It was not a difficult task because the net was empty but at least it can boost up his confidence a bit. So far he has scored 3 goals in 11 appearances.
  14. The video I had linked above has become unavailable (I cannot edit the post any more so I cant delete it). I dont want that anybody miss his assist. It is so rare nowadays that he scores or assists a teammate. :\
  15. I wanted to add that I like your enthusiasm but Lazaros, Donis, Mantalos and the likes cannot lead us back to the level of the 2004-2014 period. Lazaros couldnt dribble even against Gibraltar. Gianniotas did more in 15 minutes than he in 75 minutes. Donis seems to be nothing special, a talented youth. Mantalos is an average CAM at international level. I guess some of you wont agree but consider this. Lazaros was not much of a threat against Gibraltar (4-0). Donis was arguably more successful as a backup player of Nice than he has been in this season as a starter of Stuttgart. Mantalos plays out of position because Fortounis is better than him as a CAM. Either we pray for the appearance of more young players of a very high quality like Retsos or we try to find an excellent coach again (like Rehhagel and Santos) who has experience and tactical astuteness. Skibbe tries to imitate Rehhagel and wants to copy his blueprint but cannot find the adequate players. Compare his five defenders + 2 defensive midfielders versus Croatia in the first match and the five-men line of Rehhagel versus Ukraine. Clearly he tried to copy Rehhagel's tactics but used the wrong guys/used them in the wrong places, some faults Rehhagel surely wouldnt have committed. And where was the fighting spirit of Ottos team? (In the Ukraine away game we won after a Homeric struggle - think of the injuries of Moras and Pliatsikas, we had only nine wholly healthy players on the pitch at the end yet they persevered!) I thought at first Skibbe is the very thing we needed but now I am not sure of that.
  16. Mitroglou seems to be a constant bench warmer now. He played 1 minute against Monaco. He had remained on the bench on the former four occasions. Should he perhaps return to Benfica? I write this here, because if he gets no game time that will affect our performance as well (he cannot perform or our efficiency fades if he is benched in the NT too). What is worse: an Ethniki with a Mitroglou who doesnt get proper game time or an Ethniki without Mitroglou (and, perhaps, with Karelis/Vellios/Diamantakos)?
  17. He gave a nice assist today against Manisaspor (one opponent lied on the pitch grabbing his ankle, but he couldnt see him). So far he has one goal and one assist in 12 games for the club. On the video see from 2:11:
  18. He got injured after he played six or seven games. He has only one goal and zero assists (surely a winger could supply some). He is a promising youngster (has pace and skills that enable him to beat his defender in one versus one etc.) but I fear he wont be a real asset. At international level he will probably be only goody goody. Our talent pool is really pathetic. Thats why I dont blame Skibbe so hard. Otto had in 2004 much better midfielders than Skibbe has now (Basinas, Karagounis, Giannakopoulos, Katsouranis, Zagorakis, Tsiartas are all better than every possible midfielder except possibly Fortounis and Zeca), he had some quality attackers (even if they wernt Mitroglous) etc. Skibbe should solve our problems while there are only average and/or out-of-form players at his disposal. Granted. But he is not that astute as a tactician... essentially he is an above-average head coach of an above-average NT. If our players are not that special we should take a great coach. What we should have is a Rehhagel or a Santos. With a younger Rehhagel (he is 78 now I think) or Santos we would have qualified via play-offs. Skibbe made no-name Dalic (who will exit with Croatia after the group stage at the World Cup I bet - though with a REAL coach and players like Modric, Rakitic, Mandzukic Croats could be medalists like in 1998) look like a Mourinho and his potentially strong but not that dangerous team like a group of Messis and Neymars.
  19. I name Retsos (OK, he is actually the only one who really has promise) but as for giving him a chance and him being worth a look I agree with you.
  20. So we should put our trust in Donis, eh? He has scored 1 goal in 12 games so far in this season and he was mostly a starter. Neither he nor Karelis are that good. Our talent pool is still very limited. Among the youths only Retsos is top quality now. That means Skibbe should smarten up as you say or possibly we wont qualify.
  21. Now I see my second sentence reads like Pollyanna (I am glad, glad, GLAD for every goal of Avraam!).
  22. I think the same. But I am glad every occasion he scores (and he has scored more goals in the last year than Samaras). Avraams NT career has been definitely over for a couple of years. (To be fair, he was ok when he was nevertheless called up and played as in the match versus Serbia in 2014 when he was one of our best performers.) At least he has a club, plays regularly and scores more often than, say, Samaras. That injury in 2012 against Poland has effectively destroyed his NT and whole career. He has lost much of his earlier pace, and he had relied first of all on his being quick. He could have save himself with excellent positioning, but his positioning was never as outstanding as that of Moras, for example (no wonder he played in Italy until the age of 35). Thus he was squeezed out of Oly starting XI (despite being team captain in 2012), then he went to Trabzonspor but couldnt secure a place in the team. As a consequence of this he lost his place in the NT squad. I must admit he didnt choose the easier way (retiring) and he has played regularly for a couple of odd teams (Jubilo Iwata, Shanghai Shenhua, Brisbane Roar) and I feel sorry for him for he could have been a squad member until the World Cup 2014 but for that horror injury. In his position we have however real depth. There are plenty of great centre backs so he wont be called up again I guess, but Id like to see similar combative-spirited guys in the Ethniki (compare his tenacity with that of the likes of Samaris/Kone/Lazaros/Fetfatzidis).
  23. He scored another now (Brisbane-Perth is 1-1 in the 39th minute, Avraam scored in the 4th minute).
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