Rockafeller Skank

Galanopoulos Overlooked? Why does any youth that gets a bit playtime in a top 3 team (saddly Pao is off the equasion) in the current year suddendly become a "better midfielder than X or Y or Z". He is still 20 and he is not bad definately deserves call ups but I wouldn't hang on a 20 year old to be a starter midfielder.

Where is Petsos mate? Is he still playing? He is not even called up. Torosidis as DM? You do realise that Torosidis has been our biggest loss whenever he is missing from the Ethniki right? Apart from Manolas vs Croatia, whenever Toro was missing we couldn't really do much. offensively from the back. Maniatis is equally terrible playing for the Apollona Kalamarias of Turkey alongside Tzavella. Kourbelis , Zeka and Samaris I agree but they are all exclusively defensive. Tziolis can pass and has vision. He was an 8 with attacking attribtues in most of his career and was only changed by Paok to fit the team.

You peeps are braindead. Tziolis has been getting bashed on for getting called up while playing in Saudi Arabia and you were all saying that Fetfa, who was also playing at an arab country, still deserved a call up? Also, in the other post. I asked for people to comment the "better" midfielders they believe we have (someone even said there are 6-7 before Tziolis) and I still haven't gotten an answer. Turns out here in this topic there are people who unironically understand that our midfield will be problematic no matter who plays coz we simply do not have a midfielder worth a damn. Noone who would be NT starter material in the 2004-2014 era. So bite your lips and hope some1 shows up or we re not qualifying for anything in the near future.

Sooo turns out I was right after all. There is not a single midfielder named here who is any serious update to Tziolis. Zeka and Samaris are our best players in the midfield and they re nothing serious. Tziolis probably used to slow the pace of the game. You guys can keep trying as much as you want you ll find noone actually worthy to dethrone Tziolis. That Androutsos pick was also pretty funny. Where sis that guy now? Is he still a pro?

Noone said he is good offensively but boy can pass and keep ball. Apart from Zeka all our midfielders are good enough at slowing the game's pace, which was Santos and Rehaggel strategies for over 10 years, and guess what, they worked. It even worked pretty well vs Belgium twice and Bosnia as well. The problem ain't lying on the players amigo. The problem is lying to the other teams that have stepped up their game. There is no chance the 4 year ago Northern Ireland , Sweden , Iceland would even make it to the play offs or even to the WC. They re gonna decline at some point same as us I suppose. I just hope we take that opportunity and step up. Missing the Euro is no excuse though.

Don't get your hopes high on Manos. He has the talent but hes going nowhere. I live in Heraklion and I don't remember seeing him anytime out partying or eating with his friends (mostly pizza) without a cigarette on his hands. He keeps up like that and there he goes as a loanie at Levadiakos for a career high.

I disagree 5-1-3-1 is not as defensive as you think in fact it probably is not defensive at all since it implies all 4 forward players don't bother to defend. In fact one defensive midfielder for the whole area means that our main power aka defense will be left open many times and apart from that it gives big space for shots from away. 4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1 is what Skibbe plays and it compliments us best with Forotunis and Mitroglou finding each other on far too many occasions. I wanna see how Gianniotas ends since being wanted from 2 La Liga sides could mean increased playtime. If he turns out to be good he s definately gonna be an upgrade from Mantalos. Karnezis/Gianniotis/Paschalakis Toro - Manolas - Sokratis - Stafylidis/Lykogiannis(depends on if we wand a defender or an offensive player) Samaris - ??? Gianniotas - Fortou/Pelkas - Donis/Pelkas Mitroglou/Donis

Tryharding for Graduation. Honestly though Skibbe put Stafylidis at CDM and you guys were still talking s%$#! about him. Call it CM CDM whatever you like. in Skibbe's 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1 to be more exact he uses 2 midfielders who are defensively orientated. Zeka Samaris Tziolis. I don't think we have anyone else and that is exactly my point. Sure Mantalos Fortounis can go CM but they are not CM they are needed up front to help offence with a key pass. Galanopoulos is an 8 a box to box. Samaris was a box to box as well at the beginning of his career. Tziolis was a box to box as well until he moved to Paok. Siopis is no box to box either. Papadopoulos is terrible with the ball on his feet. Charisis is not box to box. Kourbelis is not box to box. Kone was a 10 and has became box to box but where is he now. He has played less than 20 games in his last 2 career years. My point is that no matter who you guys choose on his place. The difference is gonna be minimum. I would prefer to have a 5 2-3 with fully offensive wingers/AMF than use defensive midfielders hoping that transition somehow comes by itself. By the

Kone can't defend. Samaris Zeka are the obvious mate. I will say Samaris and Zeka are the 1-2 and I am still waiting for the remaining 5-6 players above him.

Pretty safe from your side to call me delusional, without naming someone better though, dont you think? I am waiting.

I honestly do not understand the whole fuss about Tziolis because although I agree. He is shitte as fck, who else do we got? Everyone was crying and begging for Siopis to start. Where is he now? Oly bought him and they don't even want him anymore. Kourbelis? He was supposed to be the big signing of the "Greeks" this summer. Almost August and he is still at PAO. And the fact that he travelled for Preseason with PAO and missed the preaseason with his possible new team makes me believe that he is a flop in the making at least for the next season. Samaris is getting playtime at Benfica friendlies? I don't think so. Tachtsidis, I gotta hope he decides to step up his game for the last couple of seasons he has left and go to a better championship. He flopped at Olympiakos but it was not his fault to be honest. Whole team was not interested in playing. Remember Petsos? Where the f is he now. He got a signing at Werder and maybe hasn't played professionally since then. Whoever you guys name, is gonna be nothing significant and nothing different than Tziolis. We suck at 6 and 8. You want charisis ? Yeah he might be more agile, but he can't slow the game as well as Tziolis when needed, he can't have the through ball Tziolis and Taxi have. Kourbelis as well, he ain't regista, just defensive. Same goes for Siopis. The problem with the Greek NT ain't who s gonna be our defensive midfielder, is who s gonna create from the back. And literally from all the bad players we have (considerably to the rest roster) Tziolis is a bit better at that. Quit crying whoever we put in the midfield is gonna be mediocre. Samaris-Kourbelis is the best option if we have proper wingplayers who focus on offence. Having Donis-Lykogiannis from the start of the campaign , rather than the middle , as at the last qualification campaign is gonna be an upgrade on our left side though.

Tachtsidis lack of talent aint a problem. His vision for through balls and his tower body would make him a decent regista at 6. A creative defensive midfielder. His laziness is the problem. He could be the new Katsouranis if he wanted but he forgot how to run and at his 27 looks like Katsourani at his 33. If a team can trust him and revive him by training him with ergometrics and running with proper breathing Samaris - Tacthsidis Zeka in a 4-3-3 compliments well. Samaris is a mobile defensive midfielder and Zeka is a pace baby who never quits and can help in transition. Tachtsidis is a toweri n the midfield winning high balls and his transition game is lit as f*ck. 3-4 years ago I'd tell you we got a hell of a midfield and with Mitroglou and this defence we re looking to close the gap between us and the big teams. Right now I am just hoping someone else gets produced like Galanopoulos Siopis or I can't see any hope.

He was 18 man. And he had 3 seasons with 70 games with Kaiserlautern both in 1st and 2nd bundes. EDIT: As for his attitude I am actually on his favor. He is regarded as probably the best offensive Greek player right now and easily the best 10 in the Greek League, and Olympiakos instead of building around him just keeps selling and selling becoming a smaller club season by season, also refusing to sell Fortounis becuase he is their captain. I would stop being interested as well seeing that my ambitions do not combine with Olympiakos.

His replacements I mentioned from the Greek League are having bigger impact in their respective team's gameplay. Lazaros really barely scores.

I see no reason why Lazaros should be anywhere close in the NT. The next big tournament is in 2020 with him being 33 then. No point to bring someone in who will end up possibly creating a huge gap once he retires. Our attacking mids/wingers should be noone else ther than Pelkas Fortounis Donis Mantalos for now, Lazaros Lamprou Masouras and Limnios are the only greek wingers who are getting a decent amount of playtime. Everyone has been talking about Pelkas statistics . 9 goals and 9 assits in 29 matches and 1,800 minutes of playtime. But Lamprou with 8 goals and 5 assists in 31 matches/2100 minutes with a much weaker team probably ain't nothing either. Limnios is having a poor season but the fact that paok decided to keep him and he has been a regular sub I have huge hopes for him coz I ve seen him play last season. Masouras is already 24 he has never been a statistics beast but he s been having some crucial goals. Overal honestly if none of these guys (Lamprou, Limnios, Masouras) make the big stepup. We ll be looking at false hopes.

I do not get all the fuss about some players of Atromitos /Asteras and I think your memory is not decent at all lads. Superleague is overall weakened. That is obvious from the European results. Teams like Atromitos and Panionios have obviously stepped up their game but the League is weakened. Honestly apart from Siopis, Pelkas , Paschalakis and Lamprou/Masouras I find noone else who should even be looked into from the GSL currently to become a regural pick of the NT. Limnios and Douvikas too young for now. The rest are already fully developed and past their peak. Many promising CB but honestly why bother? Sokratis Manolas Retsos Mavropanos Kyriakos will all be above them in preference. Friendlies line up that I would love: Paschalakis Bakakis Hatzidiakos Mavropanos Tsimikas Siopis Galanopoulos Masouras Pelkas Lamprou Mitroglou/Karelis

Don't tell me now Bakasetas is good because he played 1 match. C'mon. Guy seems clueless most of the time with the NT. Doesn't have a killer dribble, a killer shot , lots of football intelligence and vision like Tachtsidis. He has nothing compared to Mantalos Fortounis Donis even Lamprou and Masouras seem better options than him. I - the no 1 hater of Fetfatzidis the fat dwarf - would even put him above Bakasetas in the preference. He needs to work hard because his team is full of offenders. He just had a good season with Asteras probably to move to a better team and that was it for him.

Nah Koutris currently is very bad defensively. His offensive attributes are splendid though which I suppose means with a proper coach( not the circus my team Olympiakos is under currently) and with maturity comming with the years could be a decent LB. The reason I picked Kitsiou instead of Koutris? Lol maybe coz Kitsiou is a Right back and I think we can't get away with it by having 2 Left Backs against a decent opposition. Meme teams like Liechtenstein, even the likes of Romania, we can probably handle a badly footed LB in the RB position but I think there will come a time when we need to play with the likes of a Belgium or England :) at least let's have a player who knows the position.

No. Papadopoulos has downgraded a lot. His movements and defensive "solutions" are not trustworthy and it was easily noticable by the other defensive players in the first Croatia game. Sokratis was yelling at him all the time. Papadopoulos is a solid back up and nothing more for a team that wishes to qualify for big tournaments. For 3 Centerbacks, go for Retsos and hope/see how Hatzidiakos and this Mavropanos kid develop. Stafylidis LWB we re set for quite some years. I think he has a career ahead of him and can probably be a star in a mediocre big League team. Fiorentina is interested in him and I think Augsburg is unfair to him becz he wanted a transfer in the summer. Unlucky in my opinion coz the Augsburg Left Back German kid is also performing a lot currently. We ve seen others step up out of backtracks in their career and I believe he has the lust to do so. Karnezis is a good keeper but if until our next official matches he gets minimum to none playtime i'd rather have the Paok Paschalakis dude or Anestis. Noone else right now worthy but a lot of things can change till the next time. Kapino by many of my friends who are well aware of their sayings is considered a Ευρωπαικων Προδιαγραφών με καριέρα μπροστά του keeper. Gianniotis also decent but hasn't been tested outside Greece. I will not say anything about the Keeper coz as I said we have a lot of time till our next matches. Torosidis Right Back is a mistake. He has no more than 2 years for him. Either put a LB (because we have quite a few) with a left foot of I dont know. Put Papadopoulos there and just attack from the Left? Depends on the opponent I suppose. Torosidis needs to start but we definately want a few players to try and "steal" his spot. Kitsiou is the one who comes to mind although not so young Kourbelis definately an upgrade from anyone used. Tall guy and has some mobility. Not much of a pacey dude but definately mroe movable than Tziolis. Tziolis had a secure a safe pass I agree but I don't think that's enough to hold the midfield with such a lack of mobility. I would go for something like this in the friendlies Kapino Retsos Sokratis Manolas Kitsiou - Kourbelis - Siopis - Stafylidis Fortounis Karelis - Donis Charisis definatley needs to be checked. Galanopoulos and Overall After so many months I still stand my ground. Skibbe did not make so many "criminal" mistakes as people consider him to have done. We ve never really had 3 above decent strikers since 2004 in our expense so not fielding 2 of them for some "not his position" winger seems awkward to me. This even plays to our strengths because it's quite the defensive scheme imho.

I dont know why the whole fuss about him from the fans. It's not his fault he is static. The Marseille ownership failed miserably in his situation by buying a static φορ περιοχής που λέμε και στο χωριό μου while the whole last season and preseason was with Germaine and Njie who are both the type of striker that can run for a ball in space. Whole team doesn't know how to play with him, it;s not only him not producing for f*ck sake. These are the things that will make his confidence fall with the fans and his teammates mumbling about him. We knew he finds it difficult to adapt (Fuhlam/Benfica) It took him time to settle in Benfica if any1 remembers. But waiting to buy a player who misses the whole preseason and ends up doing nothing should not be a surprise for them. I think he ll be given his chances maybe next season or maybe after January trainings. EDIT: about the teammate backstabing him and saying bad things about Mitroglou they re all literally whos. Their team is not as good as they/we thought and they re looking for the easy excuse. From the current Roster only 2 players have appeared in a World Cup. One is Mandanda in 2010 when France didn't make it past the Groupstages( he didn't EVEN play 1 min) and the other one was Luiz Gustavo who was eating sh!t from the Brazilians for the mediocre to bad performances in the WC 2014. Calling a World Cup attender who has won so many titles with Benfica ( I know I know , Portugal has no team like PSG but cmon Marseille arent even finishing 2nd or 3rd) a bad quality player is literally unthinkable.

16 in 58 for Mitroglou to be exact Based on the other top scorers for the Greek NT, he actually is eye popping 3rd.Gekas 24 in 74 matches 2nd.Charisteas 25 in 88 matches 1st.Anastopoulos 29 in 78 matches I think he ll go 2nd in rati and surpass both Gekas and Charisteaso but he ll definately score more than Anastopoulos as well. But considering that football has changed in thecurrent era and defence is a lot more organized than it was 35 years ago, I'd say he s much better. He needs 8 goals in 16 matches to surpass Gekas' goals / matches ratio . He needs 9 goals in 20 matches to go past Charisteas or he needs 13 in 20 matches to surpass Anastopoulos. They dont really sound very hard knowing in his next 20 matches he ll face teams from Pot 6 and pot 5 4 times in total. The playstyle of the NT however is hurting our strikers. If a goal comes from a corner the team will try to just defend the 1-0 lead and it doesn't allow the strikers easily to finish the match. Of course that had been an issue since 2002.

18 million now is probably the price of Sokratis back then when goign to Milan or Werder. Mbappe and Neymar reaching 200+ mill but Honest opinion, they re not even gonna be close to what Ronaldo is. The money are nothing currently. Teams are spending too much. He sure looks like he ll be an elite CB though.

Karelis is a very talented striker and if you look at his stats they might actually be on par withMitroglou ones when he was playing in the Greek League. Playing for a far worse than Oly team and 83 appearances with 29 goals alongside Berg while Oly was playing with 1 striker. No wonder he got a good move in Belgium. Genk I do not really rate that league much more than the Greek one but it sure has more quality in the 2nd->5th positions than the Greek League does. The other teams are the typical Greek Village teams. I think Karelis finding form right now is a top priority and that Karelis alongside Donis will have us "set" for good. They re nothing close to Mitroglou but In my opinion they re mobile which can change the way the team plays. Fast game with through balls. I think if we qualify for Euro we have a chance of doing great there. The close future seems nice with our core of players still being active and in decent age and promising 19-21 youths existing. I don't remember in the close past so many younglings like the ones abroad and the ones in Oly, Aek , Paok existing. Add the fact that there is interest from good leagues in players of Astears,Atromitos,Panionios,Pas Giannina. The future does seem bright. However they do tend to disappoint. EDIT: By the way the younglings im talking about are Retsos,Donis from abroad and Galanopoulos, Kourbelis(well not so youngling but sure doing great in a dead team), Pelkas,Lamprou,Douvikas,Siopis. All these players are under 24 and most of them are in positions we re hurt, Central midfielders, defensice midfielders, and wingers - Douvikas mostly plays on the wings. There are other players under 24 too who im not mentioning but im mostly talking about players that heven't settled yet with the NT. I do not believe Retsos and Donis havent settled yet either, despite making cameos in the previous campaign's 2nd half.

He ll probably be a regular call up soon enough. Alkmaar are having their best season since they last joined the CL in 2010. They won the league then too. I do not rate the Netherlands League any more than the Greek one anymore. At least the top 10 teams we have in total are better than theirs. Ajax and Eindhoven are probably slightly better than Olympiakos , Aek , Paok but the rest teams are nothing very significant. Reminder that Ajagun was a regular when he was loaned there from Pao, and he was having like 30 minutes/month in the GSL. However, seeing players like Tsimikas and Hantzidiakos at this age be regulars in that league is probably good because big teams buy promising teens from this League like crazy. Reminder that Manolas first game with the NT was at the age of 22+ and Pantelis is still only 20. Sokratis was first called up at 20 and Retsos at 19 and I expect to Retsos nothing less than a similar career to Sokratis.

Ι agre that Skibbe takes a blame in this. But he should also take credit for taking a team that did one win in 10 games vs much easier opponents to making one that only lost 1 official. I also agree that we have much better midfielders but something tells me we have players who are not selected by Skibbe. As I said. Future looks promising. All top teams (have to include Panionios since its their 3rd year doing splendid) Pao , Aek , Panionios , Paok , Oly have a few players that are really worthy attention.