Rockafeller Skank

Zeka on the wing wtf? Lazaros/Gianniotas/Pelkas Im pretty sure an extra call up could include someone we are all interested seeing. Weather he plays or not is another question. Anyways our key players currently are: Torosidis, Karnezis, Manolas, Sokratis,Mitroglou,Samaris,Zeka and to be fair as long as these players are fit the rest are replaceable for Skibbe's plan. Tzavellas/Stafylidis we have 2 players there. Fortounis/Mantalos/Lazaros/Gianniotas/Donis/Stafylidis we have a fair amount of attacking mids/wide mids as well Donis is gonna be a threat for croats as when they start opening up because they ll find it hard to score against us, we need a pacey dude on the counter being able to dribble past a mediocre croat defender or two and score. He is the perfect man for this nerve breaking strategy Skibbe has used in all the big games so far. Gianniotas and Lazaros are obviously a class down. Lazaros hasn't scored/assisted from before the Gibraltar/Cyprus qualifiers btw. Hope he can find some form coz having him as a sub should be an extra mental push.

Weren't you saying we re 100% out and that Bosnia was gonna win Belgium and that we might not even win Cyprus? I am happy you re saying this coz it means we have better chances right now. Manolas is gonna be back. Torosidis gonna be back. Donis will probably be back. Mitroglou is fine Mantalos is not an irreplaceable person in this team. Lazaros/Gianniotas can take his place with enough thirst to prove themselves and better experience on the wings. As long as Toro Manolas are back I see no reason to be afraid.

Villafanez citizenship is gonna be a hell lot of help in our offence. Guy has everything we need. Vision on the wingers. He is gonna be a 2nd fortounis. And I know that Fortounis aint delivering for Oly but for the NT he has been splendit. Both his set pieces and his through balls to Mitro. Donis Left Wing and Villa Right Our offence on paper is decent as you said. The fact that Skibbe prefers a more defensive mentality is what makes it look impotent. Kicking a few players from the starting spots (make Mandalos the back up 10 - Kick Vellios,Diamantakos,Bakasetas out of the NT - bring Pelkas,Villafanez,Lazaros in the NT - Maybe even bring Karamanos guy has been having regular time at portugal league he can't be worse than our back ups). Personally Id go for a 4-4-2 as our scheme. Not much of wing play just 2 Attacking mids in Mantalos and Fortounis. 2 Holding mids in Samaris and Zeka. Donis a striker behind Mitroglou. It seems a hell to break plus with these strikers we re gonna be good for a couple of more years till next Euro.

That goal wasn't 100% his fault. Read my comment again. He was blocking a smart pass that the CBs might miss. Vertonghen up that high and also scoring is literally something that happens once in 100 games? He had other duties from his coach and due to those duties we did not concede from someone else like Mertens, KDB, Carrasco, Hazard. I get what you re saying. It does seem that he is letting Vertonghen get the ball but that might be coach instructions. Did you actually expect Vertonghen actually score from there? Get outta here. Also if we have better options. Name them. I did however say in my original post that no matter who you name. Noone is better. Not praising Samaris but im definately not praising any player who s a literally who and you think he s the real deal. We don't have midfielders as soon as you realise it the more u ll understand that this NT can be a top 20 side in the next 2-3 years if some of the players I named develop correctly, but until then going to the playoffs and barely losing qualification to Croats should be considered an overachievement.

So just because Sokratis is world class he is beyond criticism. We can critisise Samaris and say that we should use others in the Midfield, although despite some people saying we do, we definately do not. But we gotta forget the fact that Sokratis did indeed cost us 3 points in the end. No. Just No. We have a decent squad and I agree that Sokratis is a top 10 CB for me alongside Manolas but he has a share in the why our NT didnt take a couple of extra results (unneeded foul vs Bosnia that gave them the 0-1 in Greece, Lukaku goal in Belgium, Lukaku Goal in Greece). We could be talking for a literally first spot here if those goals never happened.

Sorry to break it to all of you. Samaris is shitte Bouchalakis is pure shitte Tziolis is good but not gonna give us anything against croatia. Workrate is what defines a player. Zeka has it. Runs up and down the midfield and helps in both offence and defence. He sucks at offensive gameplay but he s gonna be the extra man. Samaris has workrate as well. His defensive flaw is not only his. Noone expected Belgium playing with 3 CBs and 2 of them being that high on the pitch. He is benfica tier and the fact that he is not playing even though the team is going terribly proves something else is hte problem.(changes happen when the team is literally getting minimum results. Look at Ansarifard starting in Olympiakos after so many failures. Look at Omar and Androutsos starting and Koutris ending up being the starter Left Back. This is football. Anyways the fact that he is not playing, not even as a sub proves there is something going on with his relationship with the coach. Maybe it has something to do with the supposed Newcastle transfer that he travelled to England for. Maybe he missed the whole preaseason for it). To be fair. Samaris is not that good to be a benfica starter. A Portuguese Champion starter but the point is that HE IS THE BEST THING WE GOT. Period. Our best midfielder. So mumbling about who we put in his stead is not gonna change the situation. We have no midfielders. We have some upcomming wingers in Pelkas/Limnios/Gianniotas/Androutsos/Manthatis who could be the next best thing but until this Galanopoulos dude of Aek and Kourbelis of Panathinaikos prove themselves we have nothing upcomming on the midfield. Siopis is questionable because we ve seen nothing of him. He controls most of Panionios game but I really can't claim the NT would be better with him. We are no La massia. We do not produce players day by day. This is why many of our flops like Ninis are costly. Samaris deserves a starting spot not because he is something top tier. But because anything you name(because I know you douches are gonna name a bunch of no-namers in the answer) is not better. Skibbe knows this and you see that most of our offensive play comes from the flanks. Where Both Torosidis an Stafylidis have a decent crossing. As well as Tzavellas. So just because he does the obvious (which is expect nothing much from the holding mids when it comes to creativity) he is a bad coach. Also Kyriakos Papadopoulis in the midfield can u stop with that already whoever is posting it? He got no cross he got no knowledge of the position he is just a defender. I mean you wrote that 10 times in the last 10 matches c'mon. Tziolis o babas sas mi hatearete reeeeee.

They have been our Pelates come on don't f*ckin be scared. Good names bad team. That's who they are. 15 goals scored in their Group while we scored 17. Even if we consider Gibraltar far worse than Kosovo if we exclude those goals we still scored more. 9 over their 8.. This is the Second best draw after Denmark. Switzerland and Italy are far more decent and performing

agreed. a bit ridiculous that austria already being disqualified from the 9th matchday moved up 18 spots and Czech Republic as well. Winning a match at our play offs since all 4 of these teams are top 20 could set us up well. Also I expect Greece to go very high in the Rankings in 2019 if they continue doing the bare minimum like they did now, as the 2014 and 2015 results will stop counting and we had no wins at all in those 2 years.

Nah Kyriakos is a good CB bust Manolas is a top tier one. It's gonna make a difference if we play vs Croatia and Italy. The others are not so scary

Some Free Time today and I watched the Highlight videos of our games vs the Bosnians and the Belgians in this campaign. I remember many people claming us being lucky with them and being outplayed twice by them, despite tying them twice. During the qualifiers I did believe it but now that everything is settled I clearly see no better team in both matches vs the Bosnians being Bosnia. If someone has to "take" the best looking one title it should be us in both legs. The only game I found us inferior to any opponent was vs Belgium at Brussels. We re 2nd deserved and we should be feared by most seeded teams because we are unpredictable.

I tried to "calculate" the possible rankings of the teamas 15 spots ahead of us and 15 spots behind us. I think our ranking will probably go up by 1-2 spots.

Humble opinion: Swiss Italy and Croatia are better than Romania and Ukraine (obviously since they were unseeded and this draw has us being on the unseeded side). However I do believe that Greece rosterwise has improved as well. A more mature Manolas who replaced Siovas and is now a starter irreplaceable player. Hoping to see Siovas back to the team after these playoffs are played for the tournament preparations. He seems to me like he is our 3rd-4th centerback behind Kyriakos Papadopoulos and with different attributes. Can't understand why he ain't here but some like Oikonomou and Koutroubis made it. Anyways back to the point. A defensive midfielder in Zeca who can give Agility to the team and create an υπεραριθμια when attacking but also annying the organizer of the opposition. I do not rate Zeca defensively more than Katsouranis but honestly what was missing from that team was a midfielder who has the ability to cover space run and play as a 3rd CB while a few moments ago he was in the opposition box. Samaris is the other midfielder I suppose will be a starter. He wasn't playing there and I can not compare him with then Tziolis and Karagounis because the team was playing a 4-3-3 then and now its a 4-2-3-1. Surely more mobile but makes mistakes (Vertonghen goal in Piraeus). Stafylidis after playtime is a complete step up after Holebas. No wonder Roma,Hamburg and Inter wanted him too but Augsburg just asked too much for a 22 year old prospect. This has literally f*cked him over though and I think I could see it in both games vs Cyprus and Gibraltar. He was running up and down whole games in the campaign before but couldn't keep up in these two matches. Hopefully the guy he forced to be benched whole season last year gets an injury (omg im literally wishing some guy to get injured) or his coach stops being a d!ck about a player wanting a bigger move, otherwise we ll miss a key player of this campaign. Anyways my point is Stafylidis is more into the game than Holebas. Holebas would usually do some 2-3 good atomic effords who could end up in goals or the woodwork but he wasn't as determined defensively. Maybe Stafylidis ponaei tin omada a lot more but I think Staf is going to be captain in the foreseeable future. Another thing the team didn't have until 2014 was a proper attacking mid. Fortounis and Mantalos both stepped up. I do not agree with Skibbe into putting them both together but I believe his reason is "if one of them reaches his maximum potential in a game a goal can come out of nowhere." Mantalos pressures and helps defensively. He can't play on the wing but we are probably not expecting from any of the players we ll have there to do us any hattricks and score lots of goals. I am satisfied with him since he knows he can't do much on the wing and sometimes cuts inside and instantly becomes a bigger threat. Donis is another player we ve never had from the time i started following the NT. A second striker who has pace dribble and can man-to-man defenders. I ve never seen a Greek National player do such a thing like he did vs Belgium at the beginning of the match (steal the ball pass 3 of the best CBs in the worlds and even manage to shoot). Salpi and Samaris were never that fast. I believe this dude will link excellently in a 4-4-2 with Mitroglou but he is too young and makes lots of fast moves and mistakes. Karnezis is Karnezis. He can make an incredible save (like vs Cyprus the most recent- which ended up with a goal with a second shot) but he can eat a goal that an amateur Goalie could have saved. Overall I think the NT is looking bright and the roster has additions which change the way of our play.

If Greece was able to keep bosnian offence at 1 weird goal in 2 matches and the Belgian one at 3 we have nothing to fear from the Swiss and the Danish. We are obly inferior and the absolute underdog on paper against them. Italy is beyond our level. Only with good luck and lots of absences from their part can we hope to even look on par with them. Croats have defensive issues but their midfield dominating ours will surely keep us defending for the whole 180 mins. Qualifying is not the point here obviously. Presenting ourselves competitive will definately give a boost to psychology for the next csmpaign. Qualifying will be the kerasaki though.

We will most likely fall a bit more. Bosnia will remain ahead of us

Somoene that stupid deserves it. He is stupid and paid for it. He knew there was risk doing that shiet as he was literally going at an opponent team's stadium to show off to his friends for a video or a selfie. If you think it's the fact that Im an Oly fan. I would call the Paok and Aek fans to step up and tell me what happened to the cup final between them. They can literally shut up as well I suppose in any discussion that tries to make Olympiakos responsible for it. Anything like this would happen at their stadium as well. As for you Pao fans. I left you for the end. INCOMMING THE BEST POST I VE EVER POSTED. TRUE COMFY (NOT SO COMFY FOR ME THO) STORY. In summer 2013 I went after my Panellinies at Paros with 2 of my friends and our then girlfriends. One of us had an Aek towel. We went to Punda and everything was chill. Literally. The minute we packed our stuff an paid and tried ot leave literally people we didn't know surrounded us. 2 big bois grabbed my 17-then-year old friend and starting saying "ΤΙ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΑΥΤΟ ΡΕ Μ@@@ΚΑ?ΤΙ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΑΥΤΟ ΡΕ ΤΙ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΑΥΤΟ ΡΕ?" Τhey literally pinned him down and started beating him γονατιες on his forehead and dick punches. 2 guys 20-25 holding down a minor and a literally 200kg beast just punching him. The rest of them were just playing punches with the rest of us, a barman and a security. Thank god mine was not an ultimate ape like the others. When I told him "We are not even enhlika MLKES KSYPNISTE" it took him a couple of seconds but I was surprised. He f**Ckin understood it. He told them. They stopped and ran like the trashes they are. They were not sitting at that beach bar anyways. They were sitting in the next one. After a couple of mins the cops showed up and we just went to the next bar and identified them. The whole beach bar stood up. They were you know what i cant evne keep speaking english in this GREEK BELOW AND DON'T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Ητανε ο συνδεσμος του ζωγραφου σε οργανωμενη εκδρομη. 30 ατομα. σκανε μυτη οι μπατσοι και παιζανε τσαμπουκα. τους διξαμε 3-4 απο αυτους που θυμομασταν και τους μαζεψανε μεσα. Το τι γελοιο επεσε και το ποσο σκουπιδια τους κανανε να νιωσουνε χαλαλι το ξυλικι που φαγαμε. "Δεν ξεραμε οτι ειστε ανηλικα". Ειλικρινα δεν τους απανταγαμε καν απλα γελαγαμε με τη μπατσαρια που τους κοροιδευε. Τελος παντων καναμε εκει κατι ραματα στο παιδι εγω ευτυχως δνε ειχα τιποτα και το 3ο παληκαρι μαζι μας εκανε κατι ραμματα. Να μην στα πολυλογω. Ολοι , η ρεσεψιονιστ στοξενοδοχειο που μας ειδε ετσι, οι μπατσοι, οι σεκιουριταδες το ιδιο πραγμα μας ειπανε: "που πατε ρε παιδια και εσεις με την πετσετα της αεκ. αφου ξερετε πως ειναι τα πραγματα." Που θελω να καταληξω? Εαν αξιζα εγω να φαω ξυλικι (και για μια ομαδα που δεν ειναι καν η ομαδα μου). Το αξιζε και αυτος. Καμια λυπηση προς το προσωπο του αφου "ελα μωρε, που παει και αυτος με τη φανελα του παο. αφου ξερεις πως ειναι τα πραγματα". Η διαφορα μας ηταν οτι εμεις αμουστακα παιδια απο την επαρχεια , δεν το ξεραμε αυτο. Δεν το ειχαμε ζησει και προφανως ουτε καν διπλα απο τα γραφεια του Α.Ο. Παρου δεν περασαμε. Επισης, μην βγεις και μου πεις πως το λεω επειδη ειναι Παναθηναικος και το περιστατικο το δικο μου με παναθηναικους ειχε να κανει. Το παραδειγμα θα το χρησιμοποιουσα ακομα και αν ετρωγε ξυλο απο ΗΡΑ.

Overall. A good performance from defence midfield and attacking mids. All of them were creative Mantalos Fortounis and Gianniotas. Stafylidis has started to feel the no playtime he has at Augsburg. His crosses used to be gold or at least most of them. In this match he had only 3-4 good and the lucky one with Gianniotas Goal. Lazaros disappointed. The Lazaros meme ended. I still believe he deserves a spot as on his day he can take on better opponents too as he is unpredictable as a player. However, today he just disapointed. Could do nothing and looked out of sync with the team. Hardly helped. I believe the Mantalos-Fortounis-Donis trio behind Mitroglou is our best for starters. Torosidis proved once again how good and how much of a key player he is. People may talk about Bakakis but he is not there yet, and might never be and do the career of Torosidis. Mitroglou disappointed me as well. Hoping this was due to injury and no playtime since June but he really disappointed. He scored 2 goals but missed another 2-3. Same with Cyprus. Scored but lost a ton lot of chances. Gianniotas mixed feelings. I wanna say "he did the work of Bakasetas and Lazaros and even Mantalos who re all preffered over him, in just 14 minutes. He scored." But honestly he just got in when they were all tired as fuq and weren't even following a tiny player like him with their eyes. His pros are that he smells the goal. He knew where to put himself on every occasion. He was the only one that believed in Stafylidis making that cross on the finish line and he freed himself from everyone to put his 4th goal. I believe he should be a 100% last 10-15 minute substitution on every match Greece plays. He is mobile and has workrate. He moves on the pitch. Anyways, so I can't say that he did better job than all the other wingers Skibbe has used on this campaign but he did score a very bizarre goal. Wasn't expecting to form an opinion from this match but I did. a) Karnezis must got really bored b)Torosidis is deserved captain. He knows how to talk post match. He even εξέθεσε the EPO saying that "In Australia we talked with EPO and the Coach and discussed what went wrong in the previous campaign and tried to solve most of our problems.Everyone had fault not just the coach the players too and the EPO as well." Needs balls to be able to say that. c) We re going to the playoffs boiz. d) Mitroglou finding form with Marsseille will upgrade the whole way this team looks. e)Gianniotas must be a sub after 75 especially if we re defending a score. Open opponent defences are the easiest to break. f)Stafylidis future captain in 7-8 years. We ve forgotten Holebas with him but without playtime he will deteriorate. Idk the situation with him. He was supposed to get a move to Roma/Inter/Hamburg but none happened and now he is benched. Maybe "punishment" for wanting a move?Expect a sell during winter but hoping he gets playtime before we play the playoffs. g)PLEASE DRAW DENMARK PLEASE DRAW DENMARK PLEASE DRAW DENMARK Also, I know you lot probably gonna call me inhuman but, what did that retard want in Olympiakos Stadium with the shirt of Panathinaikos?? Literally feel no pity for someone so stupid who went there. He knows the situation in Greece. I ve even been stopped from OFI fans here in Heraklion with a Barcelona shirt and they told me to never wear that again. He just went to his archrival's stadium with his team's shirt.

Absolutely not want to draw : Italy Would rather avoid: Switzerland & Croatia (bot considering that we dodged Italy that would be a fair draw) Want to draw: Denmark - one man team with Erikssen. Decent squad overall but nothing to be afraid for us and definately much less quality than the other 3. Croatia are the only team that ended 2nd coz of underperformingso I would put them 2nd in preference. Don't let the fact that Albania put up a fight against Italy and Macedonia took the draw from them. As soon as the Group was realistically finished (after spain defeat) they were uninterested in the rest matches and probably conserving power as it did not matter. Not to mention that had they drawn Albania they would probably be unseeded. Whoever we get I give us minimum chances to qualify. I still believe coz I love this team but I think the play offs is the maximum of our capabilities currently.

It was a joke bro wtf.

Good luck cyprus. Hopefully with a draw and Estonia defeat you finish 4th. However Belgium looks like they wanna spice it up till the end.

Rumour has it that Tziolis feels disappointed and disgusted with Skibbe for not starting him tonight and he might be leaving the team. More info sooN!!!

I honestly think that Skibbe's line up without injury is alwyas going to be Karnezis Toro - Sokratis - Manolas - Stafylidis Zeka - Samaris(or Tziolis/Tachtsidis if height is needed) Mantalos Fortounis Donis Mitroglou We see Stafylidis up front usually when we have noone else available. If Stafylidis manages to get anyplaytime I believe he will kick Tzavellas from the stating spot and go LB instead. So Lazaros keeping up with his unrealistic form in both Europe and Greek League, as well as deliver in this match(even though its just Gibraltar a proper winger will probably destroy that weak defence on his own). will probably kick Mantalos and Tzavellas off the starting line up. It might be the first time in a while(Salpiggidis early 30s maybe) since we have had at least decent players on the wings. Can;t wait to see how that works though. I can't judge Lazaros from this match but he has been dragging Aek on his own for last year(Mantalos didnt evne do that well and he was still getting called up) and now with a much more competitive roster everyone still looks up to him in moments of crisis.

Way too good to be true are you sure? And if we win we go to the Euros or something?

Read that Sweden is confirmed unseeded. So Denmark will probably be in the play offs as seeded if France dont end up 2nd. Knowing our luck from the playoffs we re gonna get Denmark. Friendly reminder that in 2014 we could be facing Sweden and France but we got Romania instead.

They need to win them 8-0 dude. The only other possible scenario on that Group is France losing points to Belarus and Sweden winning, giving us an extra powerhouse as an opponent.

Denmark currently Drew but Sweden tomorrow with a win over Netherlands I expect them to go better. Northern Ireland just lost twice in a row so they ll drop a lot. October rankings are the one that are accounted (that's why the draw is 17 October to wait for the rankings of October which have a fix date at 16).