georgelaz

good to hear!

if people think the 'Greek Mentality' is bad. Look at any former Yugoslavian teams and we look like Japanese engineers in comparison lol Serbia MASSIVELY underachieves for their talent. Croatia might be the only exception.

The have 3 great players in CM (Pjanic) and Striker (Dzeko) and Goalkeeper. If they get an injury to just one of their 3 players, they're screwed. It's a team game. Karnezis, Manolas, Sokratis, Samaris, Holebas, Mitroglou will all be in their prime. I'd be more surprised if our fortune doesn't change for the greater rather than continues in the slump. The ethiniki is like the economy. It goes up and down, but will probably be on the up and up. Eg) We won the Euro 2004, then missed the World Cup 2006. I'm not blindly optimistic by default. When Olympiakos had Arsenal by the balls, I predicted Arsenal would rally. Even though I would've loved Oly to progress. I want PAO to win the league, but I know we don't have the quality to top Olympiakos barring EXTREME luck. The ethiniki however is a GREAT team. We've seen flashes of this, rallying to score the 4 goals vs. hungary. Keeping Turkey scoreless when they've scored EVERY game the past 2 years and they were out for blood. This botched euro campaign may just be the emotional fuel and chip on our proverbial shoulders to make it a great world cup campaign. It's not that outrageous of a prediction.

do people all around greece care about the ethniki? I haven't been around everywhere I'm kalamatianos, and I know that ppl went wild down there during world cup, euros etc. but kalamata is super affiliated with athens, most kalamatiani have an athenian team they support eg) aek, oly, pao like Klaus is salonikan and he looks like a BEAST, prideful, sharp for PAOK but looks retarded for the ethiniki is there a low grade feeling of separation in greece or are we a big happy family? I know Crete is kinda self-sustaining and has it's own kinda culture going on too

I would only do Athens and MAYBE Thessaloniki if you want to push it. Like 9 games in Athens and one in Thessaloniki MAYBE not completely sold on it though, I don't like the ethiniki being a road show. die hard fans can make the trip to athens

also for World Cup, we'll be pound for pound a better team then Bosnia. It's our qualifier to lose. Belgium is better than us though.

you play the best, able, in form players for the ethiniki. there's no room, or time to develop potential for the internationals. at best, there's about 12 games played a year internationally. the nagging about selections are a bit over exaggerated IMO. Aravidis looked more convincing last year, I don't think it was a b league thing, i think it's a form thing. Klaus isn't looking so hot this year either. whatever. the only time a player is 21 and locks a starting position is when they're clearly the best for the team. eg) C ronaldo, G Bale for ethiniki Sotiris Ninis when he was in form, he has quite a few caps if you look at his resume. he's not as convincing these days, and therefore gets less games.

I'm saying it tongue in cheek. I do think he's or 3rd best CDM, though. Petsos will likely overtake him over the next few years. Great speed, stamina, steals, blocking. His weaknesses are obvious; poor dribbling, mediocre passing, mediocre shooting.

ela re, he's the magka of the ethniki. lol

Tziolis? Yes. Tachtsidis, Samaris are gunna be hard to beat on the DM and a top form Maniatis is pretty good IMO, dare I say lol.

oh man, would love to ###### have him at PAO.

That would be good for him. A less competitive Serie A team where he would be a key player. He's one of the lowest calibre Roma players now, sadly. But still can scrap starts here and there. Genoa he would be a star, and it's still the same league.

Yeah he needs to stay in Southern Europe. Greece, Portugal, Italy, France, Spain is where he would prosper IMO. Makria apo England, Russia, Germany (debatable). I can see him doing really well in Italy where he would tower over most defenders.

it's all good man. It's not just the Greeks who are surprised who aren't in. All of Europe is surprised. That signals that we should rise again. Bad campaigns happen to everyone sooner or later.

agreed. 3 of tachtsidis, fortounis, ninis/pelkas/mantalos should be sufficient to feed. + Samaris, Torosidis, Holebas are decent contributors too. Kone tried to play more of feeder to Mitroglou and it was not very convincing. (I think in the Luxenbourg game?)

yeah you're probably right. I was kinda feeling Ninis & Pelkas over him to feed the Mitro, though.

Hopefully 2016 we can start calling him Mitrogod.

Dude i'm aware. I wasn't talking about Ranieri in that particular post.. I'm saying that all the players who were key in World Cup 2014 were on their last legs and/or not present at the same level during the WHOLE campaign. Which alludes the problem was beyond just the coach. DUH! You basically created a straw man argument. Probably inadvertently, but look it up. 'A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument which was not advanced by that opponent'

I'm a big fan of Mitroglou so it'll take a lot to convince me that any other of our strikers are better. We should have started Velios in the Luxenbourg game. That was a mistake. Mitroglou should've score a goal or two against Costa Rica. Navas was in god mode. The saves were a matter of inches and I think many people would be vouching for Mitro had he buried them. Also, no one really scored for Greece the past 2 years. So that crumbles that point lol. But yo, I like your posts GrkCdn. You're often contrarian, and you say your piece and make good points, regardless if it gets people worked up. Min ksexnate, oli eimaste ellines edw ;)

I like Kone. If we have every player performing at their best level though, I think he'd be ranked as a first line bench option. 33% starting 66% off the bench. We have slightly better quality in Fortounis as an AM IMO. Kone is kinda similar player to Karagounis from what I've seen. He's a scoring threat, but we can't rely on him for goals as a striker. It's just bonus. But when he scores, like Karagounis, it's spectacular. Kone with bicycle kicks, flicks, headers. Karagounis mostly with outside box shots. Most of the times Kone has looked really good is because the rest of our team has been so poor. Eg) Colombia game. Exception Hungary Game 4-3. Everyone except our defense looked great.

Salpingidis, Samaras, Karagounis, Katsouranis, Maniatis were all important during our world cup campaign. All missing from action in our new campaign. That's 5/11 of our regulars gone. + we didn't have the best of luck with injuries. I'm still extremely optimistic for the world cup campaign. This euro campaign will probably give our players emotionally fuel and a chip on the shoulder to stamp the Ethiniki back into the top 15. I really like our top players. Sokratis, Manolas, Samaris, Mitroglou, Karnezis, Fortounis in particular. The Bosnia vs. Greece match will be epic. Manolas & Pjanic already have bad blood at the club level. Let's see if Manolas can nullify him, it's not beyond him.

Mitroglou with a midfield Fortounis, Tachtsidis, Pelkas, Ninis/Mantalos will score probably every other game. Not playing Mitroglou is like saying you don't want to use a shotgun because it doesn't come with ammo. The attacking mids are the ammo. He's not pistolero for nothing.

I have a hunch Olympiakos will have a good Europa league run. To miss the knockouts in CL so narrowly, the EL is like a second chance. Olympiakos is even the type of team dare I say to win the whole shebang. (It would be remarkable, but not beyond Oly.

yes/no I'm more with 1789's vision of where our NT should be we have different players now with different strengths. We can't cling to the past The only real 'tinkering' for us to find success again is to utilize attacking mids (eg) Fortounis), rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel to try to find wingers (our wingers are OKAY but they aren't the caliber of the rest of our NT and just drags down the caliber of the rest of the team.

Anderlecht vs. Olympiakos is a very even match. I fancy Oly; Oly's got a swagger this year.