La Mendel

GrkCdn22 and 1789, to the problem you debate: I think, 1789, it wasnt only because of this (no 3 DMs, balanced midfield) that we looked better. After the half-time break the team always was for 15-20 minutes better than before at Euro 2012. Santos was great at this, he could correct the things before the second half (Poland - were better with ten man, an equalizer by Salpingidis after 10 minutes; Czech Rep - goal of Gekas after about ten minutes, Russia - our best quarter of a hour in that match, no great chances for the Russians, Germany - Samaras equalized in the 55 min). If I remember correctly he has said that he said to the players vs Germany: "If we score a goal the game could change" - it isnt the exact wording. He could manage that the team suddenly was galvanized into life after the break.

Let me add if the two players on that picture would have been stayed where the arrows point to, I dont exactly know how would have been they able to prevent the goal of Lahm? It was fairly clear that Ninis made the great mistake. Teaching this to real people: first I wanted to write Im Trond Sollied. 1789, Gekas and Fotakis was brought in at half-time, Lyberopoulos was subbed in in the 73th minute or so.

EPO waited till a club got him. :\

Tavlaridis wasnt called up by Santos at all, Tziolis and Vyntra were overlooked by him in 2012 and they didnt play at the World Cup 2014. Why do you think EPO wants these players in the team?

I would accept a 1-0 win for the moment.

He was ok against Finland & Poland as a right back. Could be useful as a backup defender. Ofc he is getting old but when he is good enough at that age on club level he could be a squad player IMO.

That would mean the same disaster as in the last 12 months, isnt it?

I know its the Kone topic but nobody does think that Vyntra is called up because of his performance on club level (last year: 27 matches in La Liga)?

http://community.usvsth3m.com/2048/ethniki-edition/ I made this stuff but I could earn at first only 3 120 points.

Katsouranis was to blame!

"Every opponent now knows"? Before 2014 opponents didnt know Holebas cant defend or Spyropoulos and Zaradoukas are average players? Then they suddenly knew it? They must have known the fact our right flank is stronger in attacking and in defending too because of Torosidis, if they saw a video of a couple of our games. (See also what GrkCdn wrote above about Euro 2012 and Holebas.) Another thing: Romania, Northern Ireland and Faroe Islands arent a good example, we didnt use the former strategy. Would it have been so, FI and NI never would have win away against Greece. Albania (2 goals in 10 minutes), Korea (goal in the 9th minute), the Czech Republic (2 goals in 6 minutes) and Colombia (an early Armero goal) did not play our system at all, they scored an early goal, in modern football often a team sits back (at least for a while) after that and tries to hold an advantage. Some of the other examples are hilarious too (Sweden possession: 56% - that shows how well they copied our strategy, we always had the ball before 2014). For example Slovakia in 2013 did sit back against us (we scored one goal, although it was lucky indeed), and tried to counterattack, yet we stifled effectively their efforts. Playing the same strategy (defense first) could of course make us things more difficult (see Switzerland draw under Santos), but what you want to bring out of this, to wit, that when enemies of quality copied our strategy, they played us out, is clearly not true. Yes, this is the answer to your question. If we resort to former match strategy and seven or eight players concentrate on defending, our left flank will be less vulnerable. See our matches before WC and what I wrote about this above. NO. What did they figure out? They scored an early goal and they sat back then for a while. We tried to equalize but we couldnt, then in the second half they started another offensive (then we were more tired), etc. That game worked out in that way. Argentina scored only in the 77th minute (Demichelis committed a foul against Avraam just before he scored but thats another matter) - no wonder they didnt concentrate on the defense in the first half being a stronger team than us on paper. Germany in the QF and Bosnia (away loss) scored only after about 40 minutes, thats why they launched attack after attack before that. Do you think that if it would be the secure way to beat us (copy our tactics), Advocaat or L?w wouldnt tried that strategy against us? Things arent so simple. Trying to correct someone over the exact wording of some phrase after you quoted incorrectly what I wrote about you and the likes dreaming about an attacking team dominating the field is an intrinsically unfriendly thing. Especially Mavrias (who isnt a part of the Sunderland squad at 21, if I remember correctly) is a man of the future. The national team plays 10-12 matches in a year, a player who doesnt play for his team shouldnt be built up in the NT. We must start players who regularly play for their club.

Exactly, I wanted to write similar things.

You say also we should play one (in ideal case two) of Ninis, Fortounis and Mantalos (point 1) and Stafylidis, Mavrias, Kapino and Karelis should start (point 11)? Just to illustrate what nonsense you are writing.

With the former tactics, the problems you mentioned didnt exist. Left backs wernt outstanding before WC 2014. In fact, before Euro 2012 Santos played Spyropoulos and even Zaradoukas as a left back in the qualifying matches, yet the team conceded only four goals in ten matches. Then they conceded four goals in ten matches again in WC qualification (this time Holebas, Spyropoulos, Tzavellas were the options). Our left was vulnerable right enough then too (due to the average fullbacks), but due to the overall strategy the chance of the enemy scoring were minimized. Nor was goal scoring a problem. Ethniki scored five goals in four matches at Euro 2012 against teams like Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic. Against Romania in 2013 they scored four times in two matches. It would have been impossible to qualify without a lot of goals. Greece with the former tactics managed to catch enemies off balance and score. Goal scoring is a problem now for the attacking-spirited team you wanted (two goals in eight matches, very few chances against stronger opponents). The former strategy of the NT (defending and counterattacks) meant that between 2010 and 2014 enemies had only a handful of chances to score, while we could score and win most of the matches.

Karagounis retired after the World Cup, the evil Katsouranis didnt play under Ranieri. Never mind.

Maniatis has a heart and plays with passion. He is a mentally strong player and can support our defenders. It isnt by accident Santos nearly always played him. As for the others, Kyriakos Papadopoulos could be used as a defensive midfielder (it would be wasteful to have such a good player on the bench because we have other outstanding central defenders too), unfortunately he is injury prone. Samaris could develop at Benfica, two or three years he can gain international experience (European cups), possibly he can be ultimately a good player. Then we could have a Maniatis-Papadopoulos-Samaris midfield, but this is very far away now, I hope they will get along, but it is far from sure. For the moment, we have Maniatis who plays with heart&guts (that lifts him above most of our midfielders), some promising players and a lot of guys who are in the long run average footballers, technically gifted wingers who doesnt seem to be mentally strong and fail at great tournaments (Ninis, Fetfatzidis), glistening mediocrities in the Serie A like Tachtsidis or Christodoulopoulos, and not very talented defensive minded players like Tziolis and (perhaps) Petsos. I cant see how could we do without Maniatis now.

Notwithstanding, we should have beaten the FI, Finland, Northern Ireland. Poor fitness & late season start cant explain the disaster that happened during and after Ranieris reign. That applies to the unexperienced new key players too. An idiotic coach is responsible for that, first of all. Certainly there are many problems in Greek football. That said, however, with a proper strategy (read proper coach) + players we should have earn one of the top 2 spots in the qualifying group. Yes, Fetfatzidis and Ninis didnt prove so far that they had outstanding talent. It is farcical however that any skilful Greek players should be hailed as a Messi/Ronaldo etc. Evidently they never were such good. Attackers. Karelis is one of the few younger players who at least showed a spark of talent in the past months. Yet Samaras is only 30, so he can play for Greece for 3-4 years (I would welcome such an event). Salpingidis could be used as a super sub or so. Midfielders. The main problem is that we should do well without any quality midfielders (for the moment). Guys like Karagounis, Zagorakis and Basinas are nowhere to be found now. Santos played 35-y-o Katsouranis because the other options STANK. Lazaros, Ninis, Tachtsidis, Fetfatzidis etc. are more or less glittering mediocrities. The former generation (Kara/Kats/Zagorakis/Tsiartas/Basinas/Giannakopoulos) were IMO better players who were underestimated in the world (especially Karagounis). Our midfielder pool is very limited. I would accept Maniatis and Tziolis over players like Tachtsidis, Lazaros etc. etc. At least Maniatis can fight even if he in other respects isnt outstanding. That puts him ahead practically all of our available midfielders. The others are average players, even if some of them belong to the shiny type (Tziolis clearly doesnt but he can do more dirty work). Because of this, and other reasons, we should return to our former system and concentrate on the defense. Central defenders are our strongest asset, we should capitalize this advantage and not dream about an attacking team dominating the field, perhaps playing tiki-taka which is an impossibility.

You forgot again the assist he gave in 2009 to the hateful Salpingidis. But now seriously, usually the contribution of Samaras between 2008 and 2014 was important for us, even if he didnt score or give an assist.

Who criticized Gekas, Karnezis or Manolas, pray? Only Ranieri was really ripped and he deserves every bashing.

tantra GrkCdn is at the moment one of the sound people here. Why should he learn from aek66 who is a hopeless Rehhagel/Santos/Karagounis/Katsouranis hater. (There are many on the forum, unfortunately.)

P Mantalos *parody column*

I think he would have taken the last penalty.

Fortunately. He always was against playing guys over 30, he could have been easily another Ranieri.

So you dont think the lot of injuries or the Ranieri era were unpleasant surprises?

Ok, thanks. I didnt detect the irony. Was glad, thought a bit of good news after the "Bomba Ranieri" and other unpleasant surprises (cf. Samaras, Salpingidis omitted by Markarian, lot of injured players, the whole Ranieri era etc. etc.).