Real Madrid - Olympiakos

[GreekLunatic]

Akritis not very good . If you go by the papers they go the 2 home CL games are a sell out.

[cyberfish]

Great game by Olympiakos.

They showed a lot of heart and attitude abroad, something they lacked in the previous years. I think this team can win any of the games ahead in the CL. I should say that I was also one of those screaming with frustration when Real made their goals, and when Olympiakos missed their chances.

However, I hope the players and coach of Olympiakos are a little less exuberant in their assessment of the game than many of the newspapers and fans. This is not the first time a team (any team, including Olympiakos in the past) has played well against Real Madrid, and it's not the first time a team has been left with a "moral" victory and a few goals in their net. Real Madrid is a team that is offered for these kinds of games. Their defense has been suspect for a while, but their offense will score multiple times one way or another.

The way I saw the game, Real could have scored a few more. Nikopolidis was excellent once again and denied them on a couple of tet-a-tet shots way before Kasillias saved his own team at the end.

On the positive side, Olympiakos showed more heart and skill than in any of the previous years, and created enough chances to score at least a couple more goals.

On the other hand, Real scored 4 times, missed a penalty, forced the Torosidis ejection (who won't play in Karaiskaki either), and had enough chances themselves to score a couple more.

I thought Lemonis fielded a good team that was well prepared, but I had a hard time understanding why he replaced Lua Lua who occupied three and four defenders by himself.

The referee was fine. The ejection was a textbook case that only Greek refs (and TV kathigites) would debate. The Greek referees do a disservice to the Greek teams by not calling infructions as they should. Then our teams go to Europe and find themselves on the short end of the stick when a ref enforces the rules. This has been a problem for all our "big" Greek teams in Europe.

Anyway, good luck in the next European game, and bring some points back for Greece.

[evalagoal]

My friend... I agree w/ you on the point about the "short end of the stick" with the Greek referees but there's NO WAY you can't tell tell me that this referee was not against Olympiacos.

You mentioned a great point about LuaLua being trippled and quadroupled team at times and the referee did not call nothing. No matter who's playing you can't tell me that if you were a referee and you witnessed something like this that you wouldn't make the call for the guy that's "fighting for his life"

I disagree w/ you on the referee part but other than that I trully think that this years team is BY FAR one of the best of the decade

[manos]

this is a very interesting article about this Olympiakos team:

sportday article

[Akritis_1944]

Akritis not very good . If you go by the papers they go the 2 home CL games are a sell out.

Thanks phile.

it's what i expected I guess.