Soprano76

How did Aris get to be associated with the bulldog? haha

Bravo stous paixtes

Wow OFI has really been on a goal scoring tear these past few months. I wonder if they can keep up that kind of form next year...

BTW, did you guys known Nikola Gruevski's paternal grandfather, Nikola Grouios, was from a xorio on the Greek side of the border and died fighting in the Greco-Italian war? Lol you can't make this stuff up. Some politician who was running against him a few years back visited the xorio and spoke to the old mayor who corroborated the story. There's even a monument with his name on it.

Ok so, to my PAOK friends here, what do you all think would have been an acceptable solution/punishment as a response to Savvidis' actions in the AEK-PAOK game? Just curious.

Yes the medieval Balkans were certainly a hodge podge of ethnicities and the Greek government of the early 20th century no doubt suppressed some of the ntopio Slavic languages, however the Skops take this to the extreme and talk about some non-existent genocide in Makedonia. They would have you think that no Greeks lived in Makedonia prior to its annexation in 1913 but that just isn't the case; people like Emmanouil Pappas and Dimitris Karatasos were trying to re-unify the land w/ Greece proper in the preceding decades, not to mention the heavy concentration of Greeks in and around Thessaloniki as has already been mentioned.

You don't think there's a justification for the punishment that was doled out? PAOK were the best team this year on the pitch, but Savvidis crossed a line that should not have been crossed, irrespective of the poor decision made the referee to disallow the goal vs AEK. On one hand, I agree with you and hope that Savvidis' penalty is reduced given that he's been a great investor in both PAOK and Thessaloniki. On the other, actions have consequences and there needs to be some accountability.

Whom would say is a deserving, in form defensive mid that hasn't been called up that deserves it over Tzioli and Taxi? Not at all disagreeing, just wondering. Greece seems to be paper thin at that position.

I just translated it on twitter.. seems like he's saying that Bakakis' play, specifically the well placed crossed on the goal to Karelis, makes Skibbe's decision of starting Maniatis at RB in the first leg vs Croatia unacceptable and the Greek team paid the price for such a bad decision.

That's true, a friendly is a friendly but the same can be said for Greece as well. We've been an underachieving, largely uninspired side for the past 4 years so it's nice to see a breath of fresh air and some positive play from our team. That being said, Salah is on a great run of form so you should be competitive in your group. I wish Egypt best of luck at the World Cup and hope for continued good relations between our countries in the future; after all, we do share a historical and cultural bond.

True, but we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to the necessarily since we're never in the same qualifying groups as them. Still it's nice to see the Ethniki playing against some different countries that they would otherwise not be playing. There were reports of the Americans putting on a friendly tournament for the best countries that didn't make the world cup, but I guess that fell through?

It's disappointing that the youth teams of recent memory haven't been able to translate their success to the senior team. There was a team headed by Ninis and Mitroglou that made it far in the Euros and then another team w/ Katidis, Mavrias, etc a few years back that lost to Spain in the Euro final. Sad to see a lot of these guys fall off.

So I just watched some of that video with Alefantos, and he brings up some good points. Especially at the end when discussing the players on Atromitos who should be given a call up. Is it just that we're overrating these guys or could they actually make a difference? Seems like there's a decent amount of players who tend to be overlooked given that they don't play for the "big 4"

Take this w/ a grain of salt, but I read that he has a history of pulmonary embolisms, which can be pretty serious. Let's hope he can stay healthy even beyond the pitch.

Ti epathe o Karelis?

Don't you think saying Donis is overhyped is an exaggeration? I thought Donis looked very solid out there, but he did have one mistake and that was not shooting the ball one his breakaway.

Greece had a 10 year run of form that included 3 Euro appearances (1 championship, 1 quarterfinal) and 2 WC appearances (1 round of 16). Realistically, with the type of football that Greece played coupled with the quality of their players, they likely overachieved in that time span and had a lot of things that had to go their way, such as relatively easy group draws and scraping out 1-0 wins (who remembers that game vs Slovakia where the only goal was the blunder by the GK?! haha). EPO, the players and whomever else should have known that the run of luck and "park the bus to win" was going to end sooner or later and that they would have to step up their game if they wanted to make regular appearances at major tournaments. Where did all the money and exposure from these tournaments go? Why wasn't any of this reinvested in Greek football? The 2014 WC squad reportedly gave their bonuses to the EPO for better training facilities and investment, but what happened with that? The problems with the NT are merely a symptom of what I believe to be a much larger problem. There's no proper investment, vision, or cooperation to produce technically skilled players that can elevate Greece to the next level. Look at Iceland, population of 300k but they put a plan in place and it's paid off for them now two tournament cycles in a row; same can be said for Germany and the changes they made over 10 years ago. And it's all such a shame too. You have probably one of the best CB trios in the world along with a 4th CB who is going to be a star someday and a very good striker in MItroglou but the pieces around them are severely lacking and thus their NT careers are being wasted.

I don't understand how this team can be so technically inept.. what is it? Why is this team allergic to scoring goals? It honestly baffles me. This team plays worse than their collective talent would dictate.. they have a bunch of players at solid squads all across Europe yet they can't score a goal and have been having terrible defensive lapses for a few years at this point. I don't watch much soccer at all so I don't pretend to be an expert but these performances are so gutless; the team just went dead after the Swiss goal.

Fortounis always has this lackadaisical look about him and he seems to blow a good amount of good chances while in scoring position. Though, I understand appearance doesn't always match reality and he may actually be passionate, just introverted about it. Donis has excellent pace and brings a much needed spark to the team but he seems to have some issues with finishing. He should have shot that one opportunity he had on the breakaway. He needs to be in the starting 11 every match from now on though; no more Baka and Mantalos on the wing please.

I'm digging Greece's new jerseys haha. Need to see them in HD before I can make a better judge though.

Who are some of the big prospects that are looking to have a bright future for the NT? Has Spanoudakis been playing for the youth team yet? I know he came up thru the German system and was with them for a while. There's also that Albanian striker for Oly, named Vrusaj or something. I wonder who he'd pick if he has a choice.

Yea it's in that general area. I had some questions revolving around the more-modern history that goes into the naming dispute. We all know the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe, and that has been pretty well attested to in archaeology and via surviving texts. My question is, how many of the Greeks in Makedonia today are "ntopioi" whose families have been there for centuries and not either Pontic refugees or just Hellenized Slavs? For example, I've seen youtube videos of ethnic Skopjian folklore songs being played at paniyiria up in Edessa and Florina. When I briefly visited Edessa, I didn't get the impression that there were many Slavophones there other than some touristy types. It seems like prior to the population exchange, the majority of Greeks in Makedonia were concentrated around Thessaloniki. It's kind of off-topic and tangential to the naming dispute but it's something I've always wondered and not known too well about

Fokida.. in some xorio up in the bouna, small place.

Yeah, basically the majority of Greeks in Chicago are from Tripoli or thereabout. There's a sizeable group of Roumeliotes (which is where I'm from) and then one church that I know of for sure that's made up of all nisiotes. I know two families by me that are from Makedonia, and one is Ponti. And then there's your occasional Kritiko or someone from Ipiro mixed in as well. The Skopianoi in America are definitely a small group, however they're still pretty brainwashed. One of the Skop churches near my house has a large Vergina Sun plaque on their main sign facing a big road. There's a big billboard across the street and I kind of feel like trolling them by renting out the billboard and having it say "Macedonia is Greek" lol. The longer this issue goes on, the more Greeks lose in the court of public opinion. Most Americans are poorly educated about world affairs, there's no way they know the difference between Makedonia and FYROM. That's why I'm so disappointed in my fellow Greeks because they perpetuate the falsehoods. There was an interesting traveling exhibit at the Field Museum here two years ago called "The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great" that had a good chunk about the ancient Makedonoi and their Hellenic background. Hopefully that stuck for the American visitors.

The Greeks where I'm from in Chicago really do a terrible job with this whole issue. Granted, there are very few people from Makedonia or Thrace that I've met here but mostly everyone refers to the Skops as "Masos" or Macedonians and don't know about our history. It's sad.