Rockafeller Skank

Which one? the Cyprus or the Bosnian one?

The only player missing from their A line up is Lukaku and I doubt Batsuayi is anything bad. Dzeko Tier at worst. They stating Hazard KDB , Carrasco , Mertens and all 3 at the back are the same against us. Naingollan was missing with us and they still scored twice. Bonsia playing Vranjes as a Right Back and if I found it on time i would play that he gets a red card in this game. Guy is too stubborn and probably they re all too h0rney for a win. I think we ll get everything we need from Belgium.

Ah nice then i cant see how we wot field him.

i think samaris is sick thats why hes been off benfiva bench for the last week and thats why hes obv not starting.

http://lineupbuilder.com/?sk=fx511 Find me a flop.

Lets get a bit ahead of ourselves. Switzerland - Italy definate seeded in play offs Definate unseded teams seem to be: Greece, Denmark The other 4 teams who will be in the middle are by biggest to lowest ranking Wales>Croatia >Slovakia>Northrn Ireland>Sweden>Ukraine>Ireland we want as many as of the weakest teams to go to the play offs so that more managable opponents end up against us. A Switzerland - Italy - Northern Ireland - Slovakia , with Ukraine leaving Croatia out is ideal, as I believe the qualification with the 2 latter is managable. In this scenario Wales is either disqualified or left out from the 2nd best teams. If Croatia ends up 2nd with a win they f*ck us up as the seeded teams will be Swiss - Italy - Croatia. The best scenario for us having easier opponents in the play off is if Croatia and Ukraine draw in their next matchday, as the seeded teams have some surprises. Slovakia being the one left out means that Wales won Ireland and Croatia won Ukraine so the seeded will be Wales - Croatia - Italy - Switzerland. Worst case scenario here with Wales being the only managable yet the hardest of hte managable ones.

I edited the post added some speculations and possibilities.

Biggest favorite to be last 2nd placed team in Las Vegas Betting is Slovakia ending up with 12 points. They have 0 to none expectation of Scotland winning in Slovenia. Croatia somwhow drew Finland at home and so Ukraine gets in the game of finishing 2nd if they beat croatia in the upcomming Ukraine-Croatia matchday. Meanwhile Iceland play Kosovo at home so it looks like they ve secured 1st spot. Croatia currently in the 2nd teams ranking has 11 points which means that if they win next matchday they gather 14 and surpass us but if they don't and they draw they end up with 12 points and we re through. If Ukraine wins they end up 2nd with 14 points and surpass us. So. If Scotland Lose Greece goes in the play offs If Croatia draw greece goes to the playoffs If Ireland wins wales narrowly by 1-2 goals Greece goes to the play offs If Ireland Wales draw Greece go to the play off 3 Scenarios left in our favor. I give a 30% chance for Slovakia to be the last placed team. 15% to Croatia 40% to Ireland/Wales 15% to Greece/Bosnia All this if Greece beats Cyprus tomorrow and Bosnia draw or lose to Belgium. 40% for Ireland Wales because we re talking about 1 match in which 2 results (Diplo h X) get us through (i dont expect Ireland to win Wales 5-0 at Wales so their GD is favoring us. 2 out of 3 results in that match and we re through. I give a 30% to slovakia as again, 2 results in the same match (Scotland drawing or losing away at Slovenia) gets us through since Slovakia will surpass them in points. 15% to Croatia because I believe they have the players to scrap a win over Ukraine. Even if that does not happen I believe Ukraine will step up and win them at home, so fewer chances for them to be last. Only one results gets us higher than them (the draw) and I believe Ukraine will open up to claim the win(they need the win to progress as 2nd) and they might concede on the counter. Not a match where you expect it to end as a draw. 15% to Greece/Bosnia. If it were Bosnia the 2nd Id give more chances. I expect them to have 12 points in the 2nd placed ranking with draw against Belgium and Win against Estonia but Greece goes up 2nd with a win over Cyprus. Greece with 13 points and a GD > +3 has sorta secured a play off spot. Everything is played tomorrow. Our qualification is played tomorrow. Gibraltar at home is just a celebration friendly. Το κερασάκι στην τούρτα. We can and we will make it.

Bro I dont get you. If we can stand in a World Cup or not is a different thing to weather Bosnia deserves a place in the play offs more than us. Both teams will be the weakest in the play offs if they make it. But get real. They outplayed us in Athens but that's just it. Zenica we had the only clear chance tet-a-tet to the Goalie. Even in Athens considering the way they scored, despite having a ton better chances than us, Goal Post - Karnezis Back - In , it doesnt really scream domination. Luckily or not the draw was what it was. Considering the 2 contenders for 2nd spot I see no reason why we should not have it instead of them and vise versa.

Same as @J1078 I completely disagree. We did go far better than expected and that's why I don't understand why the hate against Skibbe. He took a pile of trash and made it a group with Good Atmosphere and good results. However, after the matches have been played I fail to consider Bosnia doing as good as we did. First things first, Bosnia got in the Group and on the marathon for the World Cup with a much differend Psychology. Their previous campaign was not the disaster ours was. They made it to the play offs for the Euro. We finished 6th with 6 points in 10 games. The fact that they ve been struggling till now and there is a chance that they miss the play offs from us is in my opinion a far bigger failure for their National Team than it's gonna be if WE miss the 2nd spot. Moreover. I did not see Bosnia outplay us twice. I saw them outplay us once in Athens. The match in Bosnia seemed pretty balanced to me with both teams sparing a few good chances. We conceded 3 goals in 2 matches vs Belgium and we scored 2. We know how to defend against better oppposition and this is something Bosnia can definately not do. It is my humble opinion that Greece has better chances to qualify via play offs no matter the opponent , than Bosnia does. Both slim but just for the record. The fact that we played Belgium face-to-face in both occasions (considering that in Brussels we were a man down from 60, as good a team can be playing against a side like Belgium with 10) while the Bosnians literally surrendered the match from the minute 20 honestly does not show a big mentality team and for that lone reason and only I refuse to believe they deserve it more than anyone. Another fact that I think we will both follow , a team with an offence like Ibisevic, Dzeko , Pjanic , Lulic. Proper wingers in decent Leagues, Killer strikers and maybe the best box to box there is, they re scoring too few goals compared to our weak offensive level. They re currently at 19 goals and we re at 11. based on the remaining games I expect our goal difference to be close to equall. I see no better team in Bosnia in this campaign. I did see a better team in 2014 one.

Why, did you think that they could lose points to Luxemburg? Things happen.

You really not trying to understand anything that's written here man? France can slip. We just need one team to go worse than us and htats probably gonna be Wales/Ireland or Slovakia. France finishing 2nd really doesnt help us since 3 out of our 4 possible opponents will be : France , Italy ,Portugal-Switzerland. Really ends our qualification realistically. France having secured 1st spot would be a bigger relief. It's another thing to have to "choose" among these 3 , or some more managable to pick from Northern Ireland,Wales,Denmark etc.

If Wales draw Georgia Ireland goes in front and these points will count for who ends 2nd in their group, but they wont count for who gets a playoff spot and who does not. But England Group came up indeed today but better not rush stuff. I repeat if whales dont get 3 points tomorrow Ireland will since they re playing Moldova and Wales needs to win Ireland at home to be 2nd. If Wales however win tomorrow they might settle for the draw vs Ireland at home which might benefit us.

bro if wales draw georgia ireland goes 2nd. its a lot messier than it looks. Thats why that Group is gonna be decided last matchday, when they play each other. Sames goes for all other Groups that are possibly going to save us from being the last play off contender. There are 2-3 teams too close to each other to be sure that a loss of a team affects as positively or negatively. the luxembourg draw just makes it worse for us. more possible unbeatable opponents will end up in the seeded. We got Italy/Portugal-Switzerland already. A third top tier team like France is gonna make it impossible. Sweden/Netherlands are far more managable. Denmark Scotland Slovakia North Ireland , Ireland Wales Ukraine Iceland are all equally managable with Iceland leaving me with doubts. Turkey is something I am afraid although they ll probably be unseeded with us. I can agree however that things are looking brighter for us right now as to 2nd play off contenders. The fact that Bosnia also need 3 points for their ranking as well makes me think they ll open up and you know how it ends up for them every time.

Do not expect Wales to draw Georgia. I ve said 100 times there is no point calculating this thing right now. Everything will be decided in the last matchday at literally the last minute. Our Group 2nd-3rd teams are decided tomorrow with Greece having the biggest chances of grabbing the 2nd spot and Bosnia a few less chances too. Cyprus is on the game too. Cyprus is literally off the game for a play off spot, but not for the 2nd spot hunt. They need toscore like 10+ goals in the last two games with the best defences in the group to be able to compete against the other 2nd spot teams so I don't think they ll play for their fewer qualification chances. I do believe they will stand down if things seem a bit tough for us but I don't understand what you expected them to say in their interviews? "Well yeah we don't want to leave Bosnian Federation go up front so we re gonna let Greece beat us." Of course they re gonna say they re comming down to play. It is a disgrace to FIFA (and probably punishable) and a disgrace to self to claim that you re gonna play a match and let your opponent beat you. I don't worry about the Cyprus match but the Bosnia - Belgium one is terrifying me more. The fact that today, however big teams like Germany and Brazil who already qualified came down with their starter lineups gives me hope that Belgium is gonna play for the win as well. They are probably hunting ranking to secure top spot (currently Belgium no5 - gotta make sure they re at least top 7), so I assume they are not gonna give Bosnia a free pass, since its their last match until World Cup draw that's gonna matter much pointwise (I dont think beating Cyprus gives them that much of a points boost or winning a friendly). Reminder that 2014 WC draw was made in December 6. Which proves that Belgium has to secure as many points as possible to be sure they re in top 7, as Poland France Switzerland and Chile are too close.

What most of you do not understand, and what Bosnians honestly dont understand when they suddently mumble stuff about their coach and we do about our coach is that we are no longer the team we were in 2008 and 2010 and 2014. We ve declined. We had more players from the Greek League then and far more players playing outside Greece currently but the Greek League was something far better then. This season it is starting to draw interest and show that even small teams can get results from the big ones but overall the league level has dropped. Currently, apart from Sokratis, Manolas Mitroglou Karnezis Stafylidis Papadopoulos the rest of our players seem mediocre at best. Fortounis is showing signs from game to game and Donis/Siopis/Bakakis/Retsos seem promising but honestly our best midfielder Samaris is having 0 playtime in one of the worst Benfica seasons(a team that s not going well usually undergoes line up changes and different players are tested). He is no longer what he was 2-3 years ago. Torosidis same. He is playing in a position where age is a key factor and he has reached a limit. I expect if we fail to qualify for the play offs this week he quits the NT. Zeca is good too defensively but honestly we ve proved that we are too tough to break defensively but we can't do the extra step and get the ball in front quickly. Transition in this team is 0. Anyways what I wanted to say is that , we are not a team where a non qualification with a 5/4/1 Wins/Draws/Losses should be considered a failure. A disapointment definately, but not because we have players who have the ability to go high in the upcomming tournament, but simply because we are USED TO qualifying in big events. Same goes for Bosnia. They don't have the team they hope to have. Not even close. I ve said this again. I will consider this campaign a total success if we reach the play offs(or just finish 2nd and dont get a play off spot). After that considering the teams we will face I don't have many hopes for the miracle. But if we end up missing the 2nd spot just because we had one bad result, (Draws with Bosnia are fine results. Draw with Belgium is an excellent result. Loss to Belgium 1-2 with such an appearance is a good result appearancewise, not pointwise) im not gonna be the average Greek who s gonna start saying Ethniki Mykonou or Skibbe out. Skibbe has some bad picks imo but strategically he knows how to build a defensive wall, and that's what our team has always been since 2004. If you see some results under Santos and under Otto you ll be surprised. But I hear noone calling Santos bad. In fact I remember that everyone was calling Santos a dud coz he was picking Katsouranis. The moment he left Greece we finished last in a qualifier. Hmmm. Im remaining in my position. Most of you here no shiet about football. Do yourselves a favor and stop posting about coaches with only their last match in your mind. You were sucking his sausage when he got you an away draw to Belgium. You wanted him out after Estonia. Torosidis/Mitroglou/Sokratis missing was his fault too? You don't have the players to ask much more. Get back to earth.

Dembele , Kompany weren't even going to be starters. The only real player they are missing is Naingollan and Lukaku. Although they have CFs who are too good to not score at the bad defenders of Bosnia (since even their starters will be missing).

yep. and if that draw does not come? Why not take the matter to our own hands. with a 3-0 win we re sorta locked to be above Wales/Ireland. That's what we ve been saying all along. Waiting for others to get your result is way too much anxiety for a team.

@Boxou What you re not taking into account is the fact that Wales DO NOT have the 2nd spot for Granted. If Ireland wins them or if another team ends up being on the run for last worst placed 2nd, the Goal difference is going ot be a key factor as many teams will probably end up with the same points as us when u decrease the points from the last placed team. A 2-0 or 3-0 win over Cyprus sorta locks our spot, as there are other teams with equal points to us who have a GD similar to us. Obviously scrap the win 0-1 and i ll take it but it would definately not hurt to score 2 or 3 which I think, is managable, since the team itself wants to prove themselves after two bad results in September.

Torosidis on the Right and Tzavellas on the Left are good offensive options. I would not waste an extra spot with a player who can't contribute offensively. Cyprus wants the win as well so they ll play open and try to attack as well. I do not believe we ll find it hard to score against a Cyprus who is not parking the bus with our complete roster and with the welcome addition of Lazaros

Check my post in the matchthread against Belgium. It can inform you abou the situation.

Anyone wondering what's happening, I think I have a good answer on what's happening. Most of our signings who were honestly good and upgraded the team. Carcela on the right wing. Ofoe as a box to box Koutris offensively miles ahead from DeLaBella, Engels a good CB, not as good as Retsos but Retsos was no top tier CB yet either. Botia remained on the team and Figueiras really stepped up to steal starter spot from Omar. A CB position oppened with Retsos leaving but Im sure Nikolaou can step up to be a decent back up CB for our Botia/Engels duo. The serbs we have really I have no idea why we bought them. Emenike/Djurdjevic/Ben all are better than anything we were stuck with last year. Emenike himself is totally too good for this Championship. Romao this season is someone else and with back ups in Tachtsidis/Zdjelar Id say we re solid in mid as well. The problem seems to be player motivation. Most players who came here at Olympiakos, came because of Champions League. After the draw, and the disaster in matchday 1 it seems that well be out from Europe in December. Players are no longer motivated. They came here for Europe. Europa at worst and we might be facing a 0 points Groupstage, despite our team being a lot better than some teams when we ended up with 7 8 and 9 points. This is the problem when most in your squad are mercenaries. Marinakis did good additions to the team. I really find no way to blame him. Hasi is a decent coach and he didn't have time to show anything. Noone who comes will save the mess this team is. Everyone is just hoping for this season to end to start over.

Points vs last placed team don't count. I ve made a complete analysis I think in the last Belgium matchday. Go look it up to enlighten you that goal difference is going to be crucial. It's not good to be dependant on other results as well. Taking a good lead will be extremely helpful to put the pressure away from us and torwards Wales/Ireland.

A welcome addition on the wings. On his good days he literally drags Panathinaikos to victory. However i dont like whats been happening lately with all the Greek Citizenship players.

it does matter. I made a complete analysis on what might happen. worst case scenario we ll be fighting with Ireland on Goal Difference, although we already have the upper hand and easier programme. It's relaly better to look ahead and score a few goals.