La Mendel

It is true, the team was horrible for several months. Some of the players hasnt the heart + guts the former team possessed. When I say former players I dont think on Karagounis alone. Katsouranis, Moras, Tziolis, Vyntra, Tavlaridis played at least with passion (that could be seen clearly versus Poland). The same goes with players like Salpingidis, Gekas, Avraam, Samaras, Spyropoulos, they could put up a decent fight. We need first of all a decent coach who chooses a better match strategy and plays competent players.

Well it sounds good. He would be a good captain. Torosidis and Papastathopoulos could be also a great choice.

Seems it wont be Michel again. :\

I dont agree with that rating of Salpingidis, I think he still has in the tank, as a center too, for that matter. I would choose him now over Fetfatzidis, Ninis or Kolovos (another Greek Messi whom we could admire against the Faroe Islands), but the evaluation of Fetfatzidis is unfortunately correct, he is essentially a Ninis 2.0.

So why should have Santos started Fetfatzidis? He did nothing neither before the World Cup nor at the World Cup (nor after that by the way) that would have explained such a move. Salpingidis was very useful in the qualifying matches, scored the winning goal vs Slovakia, vs Latvia, scored against Liechtenstein and Romania (except the first, these goals were scored in 2013), performed well against prior the World Cup (that means one or 2 weeks before), it was an evident decision by Santos to start him vs Colombia.

But man, your posts are predictable. Rehhagel, Santos, Katsouranis or Karagounis is the villain (or two or three or all of them). A few examples: "the only fight he got out of me was when otto put charisteas wide, when we had stelios, amantidis and sammy. i blamed otto, not charisteas." "it wasn't kats & maniatis fault who failed to mark space and clear the square ball or super-salpi, who failed to track armero?" "all in all, a few of us wondered if fetfa was better off in the CM, but santos never used derby matches against lithuania or luxembourg to find out." Salpingidis: At the end of the day, Salpingidis didnt shine against Colombia, and was on consequence replaced by Fetfatzidis. What did he do in that 30 minutes? Practically nothing. Two weeks earlier (vs Portugal) Salpingidis seemed far more stronger than vs Colombia. He chased memorably Nani for 30 metres or so, and eventually tackled him. Also it is easy to see why Santos chose him after he seemed to be in good form (although I must add Fetfatzidis - who was then subbed in and created our best chance - played better too as against Colombia).

I dont even understand why do they think Fetfatzidis should have been chosen over Samaras. Fetfatzidis was a right winger as Salpingidis or Ninis.

Salpingidis was an important member of the team after 2008, he was a regular in the three last tournaments. He arguably was one of our best performers in 2010 at WC and at the Euro 2 years later, he scored 3 goals in that two tournaments (and he gave an assist to Samaras against Germany in the quarter finals). He scored our first World Cup goal ever, he was our first player who scored at both great tournaments. As for the qualification, he scored that single goal at the play-off vs Ukraine, and score again a very important goal against Romania in 2013. He worked usually a lot and took an active part in our defending. From time to time Ninis was given a chance in place of him as a winger but more often than not he failed on important matches. Then the same happened with Fetfatzidis, in the end Salpingidis always secured his place as a starting member in the Ethniki because he turned out to be more reliable and took a greater share in our successes in the last 6 or 7 years. As for Samaras, he certainly wasnt 24-y-o when he played on loan for some months in Saudi Arabia. Before that move, he achieved great results on club and on national team level too. He played regularly for Celtic, won n-times the Scottish first league, scored several goals in the Champions League. He was in the starting eleven in the Ethniki too, scored important goals (vs Croatia in 2011 or vs Ivory Coast in 2014), and gave great assists, for example in 2009 against Ukraine. He had a share in our first World Cup win ever against Nigeria, then he was a crucial member of the team at Euro 2012 and WC 2014 when the team reached the second round. He excelled against Russia in 2012, then gave an assist and scored the winning goal against IC in 2014 on the vital group stage matches at the last two great tournament. He played more than 80 times for Greece, and was usually solid (no wonder he wasnt replaced practically since 2008). Fetfatzidis is much more younger than Samaras was in January when he moved to Saudi Arabia, and his achievement with the NT is compared to that of Samaras almost zero. At Euro 2012 he didnt play at all, and wasnt a regular member even in 2014 (he played half an hour against Colombia, and after the mediocre performance of Salpingidis on that occasion he was in the starting XI against Japan but was subbed out after 41 minutes, than perhaps he didnt play at all). He performed a few times fairly well and scored 3 goals on cca 20 matches, but he didnt contribute much to our successes so far. On club level he played for a couple of Serie A teams and was better in Italy than our former saviour Ninis but he never played regularly for any of them if I remember correct. He signed a 3-years contract now, that means he will play in Saudi Arabia until he will be 27 years old. So there is a great difference between his going to Al Ahli and the same move of Samaras (and he was only for a short time there).

Nowadays a lot of young and (in his case say somewhat) talented footballers go to Saudi Arabia, UAE, China and places like these. Sometimes even without playing for a European club. I remember I was a bit stunned when I saw that Pisculichi plays at 24 for a Qatari team (he played before that for Mallorca). That was in 2008, now it is a fairly common thing to transfer to these clubs even when youre young. As for Fetfatzidis, I hoped for some time he will do better than Ninis (who was a disgrace when he played for Parma and fell soon out of favor), but he became nowhere a member of the starting eleven. Now as I see it, he doesnt deserve a place in the NT (starting XI).

Is Ranieri now the coach of Sampdoria? Lol.

What do you mean by "he is right"? The players he mentioned played only a couple of matches in the last year. So why should they be culpable, first of all? And you wrote another harangue. I am glad. (Among others, Fyssas is now to blame for the recent losses and problems. No comment.) I dont want discuss these matters again and again. One more time Ill try to explain this. Most of our midfielders are mediocre players. Santos played 37-y-o Karagounis and/or 35-y-o Katsouranis because he hadnt better midfielders. The younger "options" (Kone/Tachtsidis/Christodoulopoulos/Fetfatzidis) STINK. This could be seen in the last year fairly well. Even Maniatis is not so good, but he does at least the dirty work. As for the others, Samaris, Kone and the others are at this moment at most average. Tziolis too, but he is more diligent. After Karagounis retired and Katsouranis (for a couple of months) disappeared, the younger midfielders you always wanted - the players I mentioned before - were horrible against Northern Ireland, the Faroe Islands and Romania. None of the new midfielders is on the same level as for example Karagounis, Zagorakis, Katsouranis or Basinas was. That this is a great problem (how to achieve outstanding results with - for the moment - zero outstanding midfielders) was proven against Hungary, when Maniatis wasnt available and Markari?n played Kyriakos Papadopoulos as a central midfielder, also one of the centre backs. Yet I think with a proper match strategy (defense first + counterattacks & set-pieces), the Ethniki can achieve great things again, with some of these midfielders as starters too. Only the head coach should have rely on the players who can contribute most to the effective national team.

Why are they the main culprits or why should they have been retired? Karagounis retired after the World Cup, Katsouranis played only two matches (had a cameo role against Hungary and was arguably our best player against Poland) and the team performed better on these occasions than on any of the other games after the second round of the WC, Vyntra played only 11 minutes against NI, and he was in the starting XI against Finland and Poland (acceptable performances by him), Salpingidis played still less. Or do you think Karagounis, Salpingidis and the other should have retired before the World Cup? They were among our strongest players (played regularly for the team on the qualification matches and in the final too, especially Karagounis showed there he has still got it). So why are they to blame for the hopeless production on the last year?

Not even Katsouranis but the evil Karagounis is to blame for everything (and Ranieri certainly isnt). Its a strange opinion even if I take the intelligence of some posters into account.

I know he interviewed him and Markarian, and then chose the latter, but he saw Markarians achievement wasnt so great, perhaps he is now more inclined to Michels appointment.

We should get Michel, he is free agent now. If some (for example Spanish) club hires him, where will we found a competent guy who knows Greek football well enough?

I must add it is correct that he resigned after a Faroe loss, unlike Ranieri who wanted to stay and had to be sacked. He didnt inherit (again unlike Ranieri) a good team from his successor, in fact it was a disastrous and s%$#! team he got after Ranieri, but his achievement was small too.

A good riddance.

You have written earlier: Yet you want Holebas or especially Stafylidis as left-back now. 1-0 wins: we won under Santos many matches with one goal. We can win easily with one goal, if we have a good strategy & useful players. Error of Katsouranis against Hungary: I dont know what you mean, but I remember that against Poland he was our best performer and perhaps the best player on the pitch. If Kolovos would have been started by Markarian as was originally planned, probably we would have lose the match. Bielsa: one of the stock answers. Why do you want especially him? He is a good trainer, but he never worked in Greece and he isnt capable of wonders (he isnt exactly a Mourinho). So why him? Chile looked for example better under Sampaoli (2014 WC, 2015 Copa Am?rica) than under Bielsa. "We're a better team when players like Salpingidis and Maniatis are on the bench and when Kyriakos and Fetfatzidis are on the pitch[.]" We have seen in the last 10-12 months, that we arent better without Salpingidis or Maniatis. In fact, for the most part the team was horrible without the likes of Karagounis, Katsouranis, Samaras, Salpingidis, Maniatis (some of them played a couple of minutes, even under Ranieri, but more often than not they wernt on the pitch) and most of the young players you wanted proved themselves to be s%$#!. Samaras: Karelis should have been subbed out in the 60th minute or so, after that he was practically invisible. Yes he scored a goal, and - unlike most of the youngsters - he shows now some promise. The last two sentences are farcical. Samaras cant be more useful than the likes of Mavrias, Mantalos, Kolovos, Athanasiadis? Rubbish.

Samaras cant be more useful than Mavrias, Ninis, Mantalos or Athanasiadis? :lol:

Karagounis opted for Markari?n but he failed to fulfil expectations (till now). The absence of left-backs is a problem which is well-known to many not excellent NTs. Michel would have been the best option, then Leonardo Jardim, Valverde (he was asked when Bilbao struggled in the CL and on home soil but he answered to a newspaper he didnt want coach Greece), perhaps Bajevic. We could score goals with our former system, even if not so many as other fairly strong European teams (Croatia, Czech Rep. Russia etc. etc.), and at the end of the day we performed better than they. Players who work a lot and are defensive minded can contribute even if they arent world class players, they should be selected. This means (as for our midfielders and attackers) Maniatis should be played, then Tziolis, Samaras, Mitroglou, Salpingidis etc. etc. The Ninis type players (Fetfatzidis, Ninis, Mantalos, Fortounis etc.) who are mediocre against stronger sides and inconsistent arent so useful for us, they can be included in the squad (not all of them) but I wouldnt give them a place in the starting 11 if everybody is healthy but first of all we must return to the former system (key words: defending, counterattacks, set-pieces). Samaras should find a decent team of course, and should play regularly, perhaps he could return to Celtic, we need him in the NT, this is obvious after the FI games and the Hungary game and the loss against NI. When he was subbed in against Finland (in the 83th min) we looked a bit more vivid. PAOK was OK in the regular season but they F***ed up the playoff. "Absolutely shambolic" was the team you always wanted while bashing Santos and Rehhagel, the attacking-minded team with the useless and/or unexperienced young geniuses (Kone, Christodoulopoulos, Mavrias, Mantalos , Fetfatzidis, Tachtsidis, Ninis, Athanasiadis) and the "visionary" coach (Ranieri).

With a Ranieri or Markarian type head coach, it is hopeless. We should get an experienced and outstanding trainer (like Rehhagel and Santos), who would resort to our former defensive system. Then the players who can contribute to our game should be capped. And we must have some leaders who were successful with NT and/or their clubs and could therefore be respected by younger players. (Such leaders were Zagorakis, Dellas, then Basinas, then Karagounis). Katsouranis could have been a sort of leader for a while (even if he would have been subbed in) after Karagounis' departure, but he wont play until 2018 (perhaps not even until 2016). So we have (still) Salpingidis (first goal ever at the WC, two goals at Euro 2012, decisive goal against Ukraine, goals for PAO and PAOK etc. etc.), Samaras (successful career abroad, a bunch of goals in the Champions League, goal and assist against Ivory Coast, goal against Germany etc.) and Torosidis (one of the best players in Greek SL, now plays for Roma, games in the CL, many good matches for the Ethniki, goal against Nigeria etc.), they should be in the squad unless they are injured or play downright bad or dont play at all. Other older players: Gekas, Tziolis, Vyntra can be useful, they know most of the NT players and each other well, but we can perhaps do without them.

This year was a disaster, two incompetent coaches destroyed our great and efficient team.

I hope he will, we need him in our national team, he is very experienced and have achieved a great deal.

It would be an awful decision to play in Australia I think.

Youre right, with Santos at the helm we wouldnt have been thrashed by these minnows and would surely qualify.