georgelaz

Mitroglou will have to be huge for us to do some damage for World Cup. I'm confident this campaign, he's got the goods. His refusal to China is a sign of ambition. The good thing about Mitro as a striker is that his skills are less eroded by age. Pace is most affected with age, which Mitro never really excelled at. Strength / Technique however grows up to 35. Which Mitro has in spades. Sexy heel goal.

Holebas, Taxi, Samaris, Fortounis, Torosidis should all be starting and can all throw in a good pass to Mitro and Velios

haha she sounded gorgeous. his english was surprisingly good. I thought he didn't know any.

Benfica is listed as the 6th best club in Europe. Mitroglou is tearing it up as a starter most of the time for the 6th best club in Europe. He's their 2nd best striker, behind Jonas. Makes me very happy. Hopefully we can get our midfield right to feed him. Tachtsidis, Samaris, Fortounis I think can do a good job.

what's Extrem?

I think the family dynamic is important. for a world cup campaign I think 33 players max should be called up. The actual world cup requires 23 final selections. players the mesh with the culture create something that's great than the individual parts. players with bad attitudes ruin the whole vibe of the locker room. just like in the euro, there were players who were arguably good enough to be in the starting 11 that weren't picked because they didn't go with the culture of the team eg) Stoltidis, Georgatos, Zikos etc. Not sure who these bad apples are in the current lot, some people suggested Holebas, but he's been the better of our players imo for the ethiniki.

Klonaridis weaknesses is he has poor passing for a winger/left mid (should be better) and he lacks strength, gets pushes off very easy. but yeah his speed and he can score from his shot a decent amount he's a waste of space in the staring 11 for the ethiniki tho, we have better plays for now

Ninis perplexes me. He seemed like he had potential to be good enough for an Arsenal, Dortmund, Liverpool, Top 5 teams in EPL Italy Spain Bundesliga. Did he lose motivation? Did the injury ruin his upward spiral? Was he never that good to begin with? No idea.. but yeah he has been surprisingly better for the ethiniki than club level. probably because the few times he was playing for the ethiniki is when he was on top at club level because of Santos preferance for older players. he had to play super good to make the starting 11 at club level

How people throw around random flash in the pan players at times. My random flash in the pan choice would be Klonaridis. Kid has flair. He's way too unproven and barely starts for PAO for me to seriously vouch for him though. But he's super fast and has a nice shot.

yeah I thought I remember reading something about a 2 year deal actually? dunno Benfica is proving to be a heaven for Greek players. Karagounis, Katsouranis, Samaris, now Mitroglou Roma is the Italian heaven lol. Manolas, Holebas, Dellas, Torosidis.

who would you put in striker ahead of Berg? He's the best striker by far. Pardo the best RW.

you guys are probably right. The winger lineup with karelis and fetfa would be my fifa lineup tho haha it seems that the starting lineup is becoming more clear though Mitroglou Kone Fortounis Tachtsidis Samaris Holebas Manolas KPaps Sokratis Torosidis Karnezis It's hard to argue leaving any of the above out of the lineup. All have a decent amount of caps and are performing well at club level. We Also have a robust bench

Karnezis is high quality. I feel very comfortable with him at the back. His performance against Turkey was remarkable.

Mitroglou Karelis Fortounis Fetfatzidis Tachtsidis Samaris Holebas Manolas Sokratis Torosidis Karnezis Would love to see this lineup if Fetfa gets his s%$#! together. lineup with wingers

9 goals in 23 games for Benfica... not too shabby for just a first season! I think next year he'll be even better, like Samaris, getting acclimated to the league.

that's huge. I can see him getting a lot of game time there. That's basically where Sokratis solidified and developed himself further as a player who can dominate abroad.

To build the hype further; Velios, the Greek Olivier Giroud. :P They do have remarkably similar playing styles and stature from what I've seen.

I don't know where this idea that Samaris & Taxi not playing well together stems from. They played together in the Hungary 4-3 and I think the Turkey 0-0. They seem to work just fine.

Mitroglou Fortounis Tachtsidis Samaris Holebas Manolas KPaps Sokratis Torosidis Karnezis I think basically this is the core starting 10 for the ethiniki. The 11th spot is for whoever can stake a real claim based on form. It's hard to argue leaving any of the above 10 from starting if they are all healthy. Kpaps in the pure centre would flourish and Manolas & Sokratis can clean up the wings because they have great pace. It will be really hard to score on us with the above. Tachtsidis, Samaris, Fortounis, Holebas, Torosidis can all spray great passes to feed Mitroglou. We have many options for the 11th spot which should probably be attack oriented = Karelis / Velios / Pelkas / Mantalos. Perhaps a combo of starting Velios & benching him for Pelkas who can infuse pace and even more creativity late into the game. Something like that... Maybe Karelis, because he is pretty fast, and could be useful if we want to absorb attacks and play counter attack football?

Wish he woulda stayed at PAO. He was proving very solid. I fear he might just fade away abroad. Not that Belgian league is something to fear, just a weird hunch I have.

Having two strikers up front at 6'2 & 6'4 will be menacing for our opponents.

I'd like to see something like this Mitroglou Velios Kone Fortounis Tachtsidis Samaris Holebas Manolas Sokratis Torosidis Karnezis Velios is winning me over. He's in great form

we did that in the Luxenbourg game. I felt he was a lot less convincing as a midfielder. Rather, he's just an extremely offensively talented LWB. As a midfielder he just seems average. I think our midfield is pretty dope with Samaris, Tachtsidis, Fortounis + Whoever is in form from Ninis / Pelkas / Mantalos / Fetfattzidis / Kone / Lazaros / Karelis / Petsos / Maniatis

yeah good point, I think we still have I high probability of grabbing the draw with Fortounis instead of in, but with his vision, we could even win it on a break away. Tachtsidis can also supply those great through balls too, and Kone so just a thought. I do like that lineup against Beligum though.