EURO 2008: Malta - Greece

[drakos13]

only Samaras and Charisteas can deliver for the ethniki - I wish it wasn't true but it is

:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: charisteas

[Guest geok]

Some lessons from the last 2 games:

(1) The score against Turkey does not represent the true difference between the 2 teams, but Turkey is better than Greece at the moment.

(2) There are 23 players in our National Team and everyone should have opportunities. Some boys yesterday took their opportunity and made a huge advantage of it.

(3) We have discovered a new captain: Congratulations to Basinas for his vision to celebrate with all the team, even the players in the bench, a true spirit of resilience and unity in our team.

(4) We still have a problem in scoring that everyone knows about; Otto has not managed to fix it yet, after 6 years in the post, inspite of having more attacking players than defenders or middlefields!

(5) We have a serious problem in the middlefield where we don't have enough players! A really good coach would have selected 2 players for each position, plus a couple of special players (like we used to have Tsiartas for example). Otto has failed in that area. We need new players at this position! Preferably creative ones.

(6) We have won a new player for our NT! Torosidis: although not even playing in his proper position, he made the difference yesterday!

(7) We have won another new player for our NT! Vyntra as a substitution of Seitaridis. Vyntra does not have the mind required to become a top player, but he can substitute Seitaridis for a short period if needed.

(8) Our defense: with the exception of kyriakos, we will need new players (Tavlaridis, etc) for our central defense as Anatolakis or Dellas are getting very slow. Malta is not a real test dude.

(9) Nikopolidis should lose his guaranteed place in the NT. It is time to have another substitute goalkeeper (but not in favour of another main player) (could you suggest someone? I am not sure sifakis is ready yet...).

(10) Otto...despite his reformed team, he started with a 5-3-2 against Malta (!) (so against Brasil he should start with a 10-0-0?) and 2 out of his 3 substitutions were wrong. Hearing also about the other recent stories (Zagorakis saying to the players to play in the same way as in first half against France in EURO 2004, after Otto told them to play 9 man to man!), I get more dissapointed that Otto appears not to be the right coach, zagor was a better coach than him and it all the more appears that EURO 2004 was just a matter of sheer sheer sheer luck, not mastermind tacktics by Otto.......

(11) We have more chances of qualifying now than before we played against Turkey! But I am expecting to have some heart attacks in the next "easy" games as Moldova and Hungary are better than Malta........

Please add other lessons that you learned from our recent games against Turkey/Malta.

thanks, geok :gr:

[AEKPROTATHLIMA]

Oh, and just to clarify, according to UEFA.com

"The winners and runners-up in the seven qualifying groups will go through to the UEFA EURO 2008™ final round in Austria and Switzerland."

So no scary play-offs for finishing second.

Yeaaaa i was right!!!! :tup: :tup:

[evalagoal]

Overall it wasn't a good game by our team. With teams like Malta we need to have more urgency and put these teams away QUICKLY.

The 1st 45min were dreadful to watch and to see the 2nd half was almost as worse.

Yeah we had some great chances but you can tellin the players reactions and the way that they were playing that the 1-0 scoreline was going to come.

What these guys need to do is STAMP their authority and play like champions..

If they keep up these performances it will not look good for qualifying...

The group is not over yet

[aekrossoponti]

(9) Nikopolidis should lose his guaranteed place in the NT. It is time to have another substitute goalkeeper (but not in favour of another main player) (could you suggest someone? I am not sure sifakis is ready yet...).

(10) Otto...despite his reformed team, he started with a 5-3-2 against Malta (!) (so against Brasil he should start with a 10-0-0?) and 2 out of his 3 substitutions were wrong.

Please add other lessons that you learned from our recent games against Turkey/Malta.

(9) an alternative to nikopolidis would be chalkias or eleftheropoulos. while the latter probably wont happen with otto, chalkias seems possible. at the end of the day though we all know fairly sure will see clooney back in action vs hungary.

back-ups and fuutre keepers: sifakis, ambaris

(10) respect were respect is due but lets hope it wasnt just charisteas injury that brought salpis chance. the 5-3-2 turns to a 3-5-2 when we have possession. it suits us well and should be our future formation from now on.

(11) fyssas as we all know is finished. question is, does otto know this?

(12) the new players really brought a change. krima it took us three years and a severe loss to turkey to try out new players. toro may well be the second (!) new player added to our euro squad (after samaras) in some three years. unprecedented in europe i believe.

(13) give spyropoulos a chance, who is a true left winger! lets start using the options we have.

[Athens4]

only Samaras and Charisteas can deliver for the ethniki - I wish it wasn't true but it is

pwww ti eipes twra re??? Charisteas? Tin paleyeis re??

[evalagoal]

I think that we all agree that our team needs some "new blood"

My question would be what happens once we get to the Finals???

Is Otto going to bring these old-foggies to play??? HHHMMMM???

------ I WOULDN'T WANT THAT --------

[DUDE]

Vintra: 7: Was up and down all day and put in some great crosses. But his passing was naive. He had chances to pass inside but instead went for a cor

i don't understand - later you said our delivery from crossing was crap.

gekas had a header from a katsourani cross kept out by a great save and katsourani headed a vyntra cross off the far post.

we could have easily had 2 goals from crosses.

No, I said for the amount of crosses we put in (i.e. ratio) the delivery was crap. I mean how many crosses did we put in (including corners and free kicks)... 50? There were about 10 good crosses in the game. That's 1 in 5 that were testing, which is not a great ratio. Another issue about the crossing was that a lot of the time we made the wrong decision. We'd have 1 man in the box and 3 midfielder 30 yards from goal who were in line with Vintra for example, and he'd try a diagonal ball into the box. That's ridiculous, he should have come inside but time and again we looked for the glamour cross. The only player who was really cutting the ball back from the by line was Salpi but although he made the right decision the quality of his crossing wasn't great.

We have to work on the whole process of crossing, getting late runs into the box and coming inside when the cross isn't on.

[DUDE]

what we saw yesterday worked BUT i am unsure wether the duo salpi AND gekas will take us far as a striking force internationally. too small i think. whats your take?

katsouranis was a major disappointment to me in these two games. still he can and will play better. you may be right about him and basinas though. another option would always be patsa. or play torosidis as a defensive mid and bring in spyropoulos (long overdue) who is a real left winger. another option would be iliadis who turned heads at international youth tournaments and is a regular at paok and the u-21. i also like taralidis from olympiakos, as he has a wicked shot but hes not even starting a thrylos, so that would be far fetched.

talking of left backs. what about nastos?

as for vryzas. i agree. probably the best holding striker we have now is samaras.

offensive mid is a problem and only kiliaras of ergotelis comes to mind.

Agree 100%, the only they can both play as strikers is if play as a front 3 and have a big striker on with them. The only thing i disagree with here is that I think the big striker should be Samaras or Lybe. Lybe gets some great flick ons and for players like Gekas and Salpi that could be gold dust. Haristea really isn't offering much imo. As for who to go with between Gekas and Salpi, everyone knows I'm a Salpi fan. It's clear we lack an abundance of quality so service to the forwards will always be limited and I just think that Salpi's work rate will get us goals and make things happen so I prefer Salpi but they should be rotated and both given a chance.

As for the young players. I have only seen Spyropoulos play on a couple of occasions as a make shift left back and although he wasnt troubled he didnt really feature so i can't make a judgement. If we are going to stick with a 5-3-2 then I'd also like to see Tziortziopoulos given a chance. His crossing ability is tremendous (I'd go as far as to say world class), of course he is a bit of a liability defensively but with 5 at the back I'm sure we could compensate for that. Patsa in the endekada is an absolute must, he can defend as well as attack. Koiliaras is not ready for NT level yet imo and Taralidis isn't good enough. He has talent though so if he was a regular at another club he might get a look in so he should leave Oly ASAP. Of course these are just opinions but one thing is for sure we need match practice. Can't Epo arrange a series of friendlies so we can try things? Most of the foreign-based players won't be released but even so if the superleague took a break every now and again for a few of extra friendlies we could try alot of these domestically based players. For example:

------------------------------------------Halkias/Sifakis------------------------------------

----------------------------Dellas---------Kapsis----------Antzas--------------------------

Vintra/Patsa/Ninis--------------------------Illiadis/Tziortziopoulos/Spyropoulos/Nastos

-----------------------Patsa-----------Tziolis/Koirialas-----------Torosidis----------------

---------------Salpi/Papadopoulos/Kapetanos------------------------Lybe---------------

We could try all these things if only we had the chance. Turkey did this when they were going throuh their transitional period and its time Epo arranged friendlies.

[loup]

pwww ti eipes twra re??? Charisteas? Tin paleyeis re??

Relatively speaking pathia

Salpigidis and Gekas have 23 caps and 0 goals

Charisteas has more than that in his last 23 games

If people argued about putting a youngster in there that would be something but these 2 do not produce under the current regime

Check the stats - not updated from last week - they do not lie

http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/nationalman...nsferdaten.html

[as5664]

I don't think Rehhagel will use 5-3-2 again. I think he played this formation because this game was a must win: a) to maintain a top spot in the group, and b)to boost the morale of the entire team. Regardless what everyone seems to think we dominated the game against Malta, the lack of goals was a matter of bad luck.

Nevertheless, these "small teams" are proving dangerous all around. Spain only beat Iceland 1-0, Portugal tied with Serbia 1-1, Poland against Armenia 1-0, Czech Rep. 1-0 against Cyprus, and Azerbaijan beating Finland 1-0! So, bottom-line, who cares that we only won by a penalty, qualification is all that matters. If we qualify, we take everything one game at a time thereafter.

Does anyone have any guesses who we will play in a friendly before qualification matches resume in June? I hope Rehhagel takes this opportunity to try out some new players and strategies. How come we never play a team like Italy? I would love to see a game against the world champions. The last European team we played was France, where for whatever reason Rehhagel used a 4-5-1; shouldn't we try new things during friendlies and not use formations meant to grind out draws? It would be great if Rehhagel took an attacking approach in a friendly and, for once, see how we fare...I have 3-4-1-2, 3-4-3, or even 3-5-2 in mind. We should play 2 frienlies, one to play our standard game, and a second to try something unique and risky.

[Olympiakosthyra7]

I don't think Rehhagel will use 5-3-2 again. I think he played this formation because this game was a must win: a) to maintain a top spot in the group, and b)to boost the morale of the entire team. Regardless what everyone seems to think we dominated the game against Malta, the lack of goals was a matter of bad luck.

Nevertheless, these "small teams" are proving dangerous all around. Spain only beat Iceland 1-0, Portugal tied with Serbia 1-1, Poland against Armenia 1-0, Czech Rep. 1-0 against Cyprus, and Azerbaijan beating Finland 1-0! So, bottom-line, who cares that we only won by a penalty, qualification is all that matters. If we qualify, we take everything one game at a time thereafter.

Does anyone have any guesses who we will play in a friendly before qualification matches resume in June? I hope Rehhagel takes this opportunity to try out some new players and strategies. How come we never play a team like Italy? I would love to see a game against the world champions. The last European team we played was France, where for whatever reason Rehhagel used a 4-5-1; shouldn't we try new things during friendlies and not use formations meant to grind out draws? It would be great if Rehhagel took an attacking approach in a friendly and, for once, see how we fare...I have 3-4-1-2, 3-4-3, or even 3-5-2 in mind. We should play 2 frienlies, one to play our standard game, and a second to try something unique and risky.

:nw: :nw: :nw:

[aekrossoponti]

i thought salpiggidi was ok, yesterday. if anything, i think he is perfect in the same position he played in that 1st half against malta, if and when greece goes to a 4-3-3. from left to right: a lagos-samaras or gekas-salpiggidis or stelios attacking tridente wouldn't disappoint me.

i still like the 4-3-3, with the correct players in their correct positions.

i would say with a 4-3-3 things have to look like this up front:

lagos or pap-samaras or charisteas-salpi or stelios

i acually think pap could be an option for the left position. he played it for pao but at the moment he is not at his best.at least better than anything else we would have on offer if lagos is out. lympe could be an alternative for the centre forward position. gekas is not a winger and o me wouldnt work on the right wing position. if anything he has to play in the box as a centre forward or second striker in a striking duo.

[aekrossoponti]

The only thing i disagree with here is that I think the big striker should be Samaras or Lybe. Lybe gets some great flick ons and for players like Gekas and Salpi that could be gold dust. Haristea really isn't offering much imo.

As for the young players. I have only seen Spyropoulos play on a couple of occasions as a make shift left back and although he wasnt troubled he didnt really feature so i can't make a judgement. If we are going to stick with a 5-3-2 then I'd also like to see Tziortziopoulos given a chance. His crossing ability is tremendous (I'd go as far as to say world class), of course he is a bit of a liability defensively but with 5 at the back I'm sure we could compensate for that.

Can't Epo arrange a series of friendlies so we can try things?

------------------------------------------Halkias/Sifakis------------------------------------

----------------------------Dellas---------Kapsis----------Antzas--------------------------

Vintra/Patsa/Ninis--------------------------Illiadis/Tziortziopoulos/Spyropoulos/Nastos

-----------------------Patsa-----------Tziolis/Koirialas-----------Torosidis----------------

---------------Salpi/Papadopoulos/Kapetanos------------------------Lybe---------------

i am a lympe fan BUT 8 times out of 10 he doesnt show. especially if he starts. to me he is too slow against strong teams and doesnt work enough. i still remember his horrible display against denmark. to me lympe is good option from the bench or if we deide to play him behind two striker which until now though has never worked. so samaras to me has to be prefered.

charisteas in any case offers world class aerial play. if we would have some crosses flying in, he could really make his mark. by far the best guy aerially on the squad but with the ball at his feet not as good as samaras or lympe. still if he puts in the work we usually see from him, i prefer him over lympe. hgas to be 100% fit though.

i agree with you on salpi.

spyropoulos had a great game at karaiskaki where he was man of the match. its no coincidence the big three are all chasing him. pao signed him to years ago along with tziolis and mantzios but due to a positive doping controll and thus a ban, waived him. now they are again interested. many people that closely follow the superleague tell me he is THE option on the left side. i seldom watch panionios but what i saw seems worthy to be tested a ethniki level.

tziortziopoulos was my clear favourite two years ago befoere his injury for the fyssas position. ever since he hasn t reached a constance in his game. he has good moments and bad moments. could be tried but defensively is too weak against strong opposition at the moment. since spyropoulos is much younger, i would go for the panionios guy but would keep an eye an tziortziopoulos. world class crossing??? you are probably refering to the one cross against milan :-) on his normal day, he is a good crosser by superleague standards but not world class by any means.

as for your formation: iliadis is def mid and a very good one. lets not waste him on the left side.

at the moment i would like to see:

....eleftheropoulos....

......goumas..kapsis(tavlaridis)...kiriakos

giourkas...............................................spyropoulos

..............toro.......basinas....katsouranis

.................salpi...........samaras.............

lets not forget vyntra can also play on the left side and when he did so, pao fans tell me, he was good.

other options for the endekada:

goal: chalkias, sifakis, ambaris

defense: dellas, alexopoulos if fit, torosidis, patsa

right wing: vyntra, toro or patsa

left wing: toro, vyntra, tziortziopoulos

midfield: iliadis, karagounis, patsa, koilaras, tziolis, in time for the euro perhaps ninis ;-), stelios, kafes, lagos

attack: gekas, charisteas, lympe, pap

seems a decent squad with some depth. its in the stars if and when patsa really returns to his old self.

[dark_horse]

Hope you recover from Davidhealyitis also! :P

Thanks Irlandos, I needed some "comic relief". :D :LOL:

Lucky for you Healy played, don't worry, wait till they come to Sweden. :box:

[Olympiakosthyra7]

Thanks Irlandos, I needed some "comic relief". :D :LOL:

Lucky for you Healy played, don't worry, wait till they come to Sweden. :box:

looks like you made a speedy recovery :tup:

[JohnnyTheGreek]

All right. Let's clear up a few things.

First off, anybody here still defending Charisteas has had his or her head up his/her a$$ since Euro 2004.

The guy's been a bench warmer on a third-rate team in a third-rate league for a year now, and yet there are still people who think he's the solution to our problems when in fact, he's done absolutely nothing.

Unless you rebound your shot off his head, he's useless. He has ZERO dribbling skills, a lousy first touch, and virtually no vision of play.

Gekas has been doing well in the Bundesliga, but if he's to start, he really should be a lone striker working in front of two others, a system which works better than a stacked midfield with what we have in terms of quality.

For that, we also need sharpshooters on either side, not to mention people who can pass. Salp isn't bad, but Lymberopoulos on the end of a game will make a difference. He's a more natural goal scorer, and much better in the air than almost anybody we've got.

The problem with the midfield is we've got no designated offensive midfielder, which should be sorted out quickly. There seems to be a lot of confusion between Karagounis, Stelios, and Katsouranis, and we should either get into a diamond formation, or else 4-3-2-1 or 4-3-1-2.

I'd be happier with the former. Give Gekas the feeds but have two capable strikers who can score from outside the box.

[Genome]

[byzantinos]

what about the possibility of castillo into the mix where do you guys think he should go ?

[loup]

First off, anybody here still defending Charisteas has had his or her head up his/her a$$ since Euro 2004.

The guy's been a bench warmer on a third-rate team in a third-rate league for a year now, and yet there are still people who think he's the solution to our problems when in fact, he's done absolutely nothing.

Charisteas starts for Feynoord

last 14 games has 9 goals

[GS1905]

off topic I know but I've just seen the Greek penalty against Malta.. and hey!

I can now see why Toro went to Olympiakos.. Olympiakos started their youth project with him.. He'll replace Djole as the top diver in the League.. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

It was a deserved win though! ;)

[loup]

off topic I know but I've just seen the Greek penalty against Malta.. and hey!

I can now see why Toro went to Olympiakos.. Olympiakos started their youth project with him.. He'll replace Djole as the top diver in the League.. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

It was a deserved win though! ;)

i think it was a penalty - but Toro made sure the ref knew there was contact :tup:

[Athens4]

It wasnt a penalty, but we deserved the win.

loup stop defending Charisteas... he is the biggest abalos ever

[DUDE]

off topic I know but I've just seen the Greek penalty against Malta.. and hey!

I can now see why Toro went to Olympiakos.. Olympiakos started their youth project with him.. He'll replace Djole as the top diver in the League.. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

It was a deserved win though! ;)

It was a clear penalty!

[plato-ny]

off topic I know but I've just seen the Greek penalty against Malta.. and hey!

I can now see why Toro went to Olympiakos.. Olympiakos started their youth project with him.. He'll replace Djole as the top diver in the League.. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

It was a deserved win though! ;)

Greece outplayed Malta and had chances to score but needed a dive-penalty to win the match.

Just like Turkey outplayed Greece and Norway but needed the off-days of the opposing teams' goalies to win. Works both ways!

To all the Greeks, just so you know, Saturday March 31 is the last day to apply for tickets for Euro 2008...