georgelaz

we don't even have a wing problem if holebas and fetfa were selected. the wing could've been a strength of ours smh

don't see him doing well in epl. I can see him doing well in la liga or italy.

I forgot about gianniotas. didn't staf play on the wing last game vs. bosnia?

This is what I see Skibbe doing vs. Belgium. Not too shabby. Only flaw is Staf and Mantalos are not natural attacking wingers. Maniatis is clubless. Mitro Staf Fortounis Mantalos Maniatis Samaris Tzav Sokratis Manolas Torosidis Karnezis

mls is getting pretty decent. former pao player ivanchsitz played for the champions and looked pretty good. also was a good player for pao and austria NT. It's slowly starting to pick up steam and at least in toronto, attendance is very good and the stadiums are state of the art from what I saw (not that im a pro at sussing that out)

I was wondering about Kapino. Cause I always thought he was just greek but the last name puzzled me.

russian league is pretty good. almost as good a portugal. zenit and cska moscow in particular. it's a strange league tho, seems like 80% ussr people and 20% brazilians. Off my first look at the squads.

karagounis, gekas, and katsouranis were great abroad as well.

torosidis can play dm very well. if we have all 3 of our cb's available we can slot sokratis as rb.

even our best position CB belgium evenly matches us with a better goalie (courtois, kompany, alderweild). we're truly underdogs and belgium is a world class team. seems this campaign they really worked out the kinks. we tend to turn it up against the big dogs though, let's hope we do.

i'm surprised we've never really seen mitroglou with a second striker via karlies/kone. seems like an obvious option.

the prophecy is coming true. karnezis in form to an 84! http://www.futhead.com/17/players/51349/orestis-karnezis/ we now have 86 sokratis 86 manolas and 84 karnezis. Fifa wise the strongest greek side of all time. the lazy greek mentality is also thwarted after the faroe losses so it may have been a blessing in disguise. if we can scrap a point or more from belgium, anything can happen.

beat me to it! fetfatzidis with an assist against a full strength Barcelona. anyone who doubted me that he should still start and that his league is irrelevant can now bow down as if I am allah (semi-kidding) our weakness is the wings. holebas LW. Fetfa RW. Problem instantly dissolves and we have nifty wing play. Fortounis in the centre. Mitroglou striker. Tachtsi and Samaris deep CMs. Our obviously stacked defense. And we have an omadara pedia. http://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/2016/12/13/al-ahli-vs-barcelona-highlights-full-match/ over here in toronto giovinco is a star for toronto fc and i think is getting some national team love despite playing in a weaker league. sometimes playing in a weaker league is very good psychologically. you get used to winning so much that when you play a big team, you'll put that extra hustle to level the score cause you're so used to winning that you GO for it. whereas if psychologically you think you're the weaker team, losing by a small margin is 'respectable'

kpaps is a beast. we put the guy in RB and CDM and he was a killer. He has that classic greek golden generation feel.

I think Turkey is a bit better than us, they're underachievers. We can take them but they have way more flair in attack. Their defense isn't too shabby either, Toprak is solid. Also they have Ozil And Gundogan who play for Germany. Luckily, in tournaments I think defense wins championships. Yes they have a great attack but they aren't near the level of attack that Spain, or Argentina possess. So if they're fighting fire with fire, they'll lose 9 times out of 10. Whereas we can absorb the attack and just capitilize on a few mistakes. Also mind you, they have a population of 80 million and we have 11 million.

realistically we aren't any worse than top 30 imo

an Austrian exchange student today my gym was rocking a Sokratis dortmund jersey. So I had to give him props and I told him that he's from the same city as myself in Greece :)

most players soccer prime is 25-28. The male body and brain in general doesn't full mature until 25, actually. CB A bit later 28-31. GK a bit more 30-33. IMO

that's chill, but they'll kill us on the wings if toro and staf play that high up. they have super fast attackers. faster than anyone on our starting 11

I'd do something like this against belgium Karelis Fortounis Tachtsi Samaris Maniatis Staf Tzavella Sokratis Manolas Torosidis Karnezis basically park the bus and hope karelis can get a break away. even though im a mitroglou fan he'll be useless on the break which is 9/10 is the only chance we'll score against belgium. mitro would be good on a set play tho kinda similar to how we played against turkey. we saw how useless mitroglou was playing defensive football. his best games are when we're playing highly attacking which is rare vs. romania, costa rica, hungary. karelis is ambitious and will make tons of runs and he's an engine so he'd be the perfect lone striker. he's not afraid to take lots of shots mitroglou is a bit of a perfectionist and prefers to really get a perfect strike which makes him not even take the shot as he gathers his feet and gets into position.

In reality though. I think if he were to go to Asia to play soccer he'll be more rested from less competitive football and his inner warrior would have to step up for the ethiniki because that's his only chance at true competitive football. Even the few times fetfa played when he was in arabia he looked sharped. talent is talent at the end of the day. just playing devil's advocate because obviously playing in a better league is more likely to reach potential and be sharp. If you put messi or ronaldo to play in qatar though they'd still likely be world class imo. maybe if they went under 25 it would stifle their growth.

hope that isn't true. fetfa through us under the bus by doing to saudi arabia when we're desperate for wingers lol we can't have dm problems now too

got an 86 in form on fifa. we have one of the best defensive duos in game now. top 5 perhaps http://www.futhead.com/17/players/51013/sokratis/

a draw against belgium isn't far fetched. if we play 3 cb's and 3 cdms (maniatis, samaris, tachtsi). tzavellas as a lb gives us 4 cb's too. He is stronger defensively than holeba or staf, so thats the nice thing about him. if i was booky id imagine it'd be 65% belgium win 25% draw 10% greece win essentially a 1 in 3 chance to pickup some sort of point and we have the opportunity twice. bosnia already lost their game, so we're in the drivers seat at least.

is mitroglou is apparently double footed. so him on the right with karelis on the left can really confuse goal keepers. essentially two left footed strikers.