End of an ERA

[gcp]

Kai O Pilavios paremine sth Afrikh, sigoura gia doulia A re vremenh sanida pou thelete oloi!

I stand corrected, Pilavios did return with the team, good on him. Otto did not so Pilavios' statement of "we'll wait until Otto comes to Greece to discuss the future" should have instead been "the Greek NT cannot afford to wait 'till Her Otto decides to grace us with his presence, and after he completed enjoying the remainder of the WC which we the Greek fans and the NT cannot enjoy due to king's negatives in character which are now more than ever most evident. A new chapter in the GNT begins, NOW, and Her Otto has absolutely no place in it. In layman's terms, from this moment on he can consider himself fired and should not bother coming to Greece as we have nothing further to discuss!"

But hey that's just me, and what do I know, I'm just a dumb Grego! Onward to bigger and better things, i.e. GO Brazil today and GO USA tomorrow!!

[Irlandos]

To my fellow AEKtzides:

Please correct me as my memory is not what it used to be but weren't all our victories, with Santos at the helm, of the 1-0 variety? :huh:

[andrew_g]

andrew_g, do you remember Russia in 2004? They gave us an ass whipping but hey our NT bounced right back to win it all so more power to them! Just keeping the facts straight.

I never said we beat Russia, I know they beat us, but we managed to pull a goal back, I felt we were in control of things, we didn't crumble and if you'll recall Tsartas nearly tied the game. The 2010 team doesn't have that fight in it.

[Genome]

To my fellow AEKtzides:

Please correct me as my memory is not what it used to be but weren't all our victories, with Santos at the helm, of the 1-0 variety? :huh:

Uhu ... I think he will bring more of the same ... in a way. I think he'll bring attacking football to get a goal, then close the defense (as opposed to Rehhagel's closing the defense and hoping for a goal to start with).

[Lazarus]

Please correct me as my memory is not what it used to be but weren't all our victories, with Santos at the helm, of the 1-0 variety?  :huh:

I'm not an AEKtzis, so forgive me for jumping in.

From the site Probability Theory: Anatomy of a soccer (football) match

Likely scores - If the home team wins; it will win 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 over 60% of the time. If the away team wins if will win 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 nearly 70% of the time. If its a draw is is highly likley to be 0-0, 1-1 or 2-2.

So, the overall probability of any soccer win being 1-0 is pretty high to begin with. It's the nature of the beast....

[thrylos]

To my fellow AEKtzides:

Please correct me as my memory is not what it used to be but weren't all our victories, with Santos at the helm, of the 1-0 variety? :huh:

I don't think anyone will complain if the National Team wins every game 1-0 IF:

+the players try hard

+the players are used correctly

+the players deserve to be there

+the players have the option of moving forward

+we don't play a 8 defense system

+deserving players are in their right positions

+youth is given a chance at least in friendlies

[athinaios]

Samaras (and others) maybe happy that the team had only 3 chances to score (counting those where the ball wasn't on target) during this WC...

A country with very low expectations, with dubious unreliable effort, where true effort and talent are subservient to personal connections, favoritism, and personality cults.

And, it seems that many of these bad elements are here to stay...

[gcp]

Andrew_g, I'm with you 100%.

What a great game today between Brazil and Portugal. Strategic to no end, where possesion and control of the ball was as it always ought to be, paramount. Lucio did very well against Ronaldo, now that's the way to shut down a superstar like him or Messi, not the mess we created with Messi (pun intended). No substitute for talent I guess....

I hope the USA does well tomorrow but the talent pool is not there for the next round so I am afraid sweet 16 is the end of the line. But hey, as long as the team's there, with their attitude there's always a good chance for success.

[gcp]

Ta idia Panteli mou ta idia Pantelaki mou! It appears there's so many Greeks reporters up so far the german's a$$ I'm surpised the man can even seat down :nw:

Apo Ta Nea:

http://www.tanea.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=5...5&artid=4581580

[Clover22]

FINALLY he's gone! Only problem its 4 years TOO LATE. Great up until '04; overpaid, irresponsible and negative afterwards: those qualities you DON'T want in a coach.

Santos may be good for us since he has experience and he knows the players. We can hire a big name from some other country but the question is would he be willing to put in the time to watch videos and look at all the players? That takes time. Arsene Wenger might be good because he talks favorably about Greek football. I could see him willing to put the time in...but this doesn't look likely anyway. Don't know about his contract w/ Arsenal. Wouldn't he want to move on after so much time there?

Looking forward to better football w/ the NT.

[Genome]

FINALLY he's gone! Only problem its 4 years TOO LATE. Great up until '04; overpaid, irresponsible and negative afterwards: those qualities you DON'T want in a coach.

Santos may be good for us since he has experience and he knows the players. We can hire a big name from some other country but the question is would he be willing to put in the time to watch videos and look at all the players? That takes time. Arsene Wenger might be good because he talks favorably about Greek football. I could see him willing to put the time in...but this doesn't look likely anyway. Don't know about his contract w/ Arsenal. Wouldn't he want to move on after so much time there?

Looking forward to better football w/ the NT.

Wenger isn't even going to France, and he would come to Greece? Don't get me wrong, I would welcome him, but I don't think he's going to leave his spot at Arsenal ...

[mangas21]

excellent articles from Klose from germany:

notice the attributes that he considers most important in winning soccer -

ERASMIA, South Africa (AP)—England

[thrylos]

To add to it,

Klose said....

“

[mangas21]

its ALL about perspective and sensibility.....in countries like germany / holland, those that produce consistent results, there is a sense of continuity from one NT generation to the next....a passing of the baton WILLINGLY...the players form these countries have such a higher level of understanding about the NT team and their role in it. this also extends to the club level, the press, the governing bodies etc....an unspoken understanding of "one for all and all for one"

its no surprise that almost the same teams go beyond the round of 16 and end up in the quaters/semis etc. italy / france / england were the big tragedies here, and it shows that on this level, anyone can beat anyone on a given day...as the article points out, "are you in the game from the beginning".....if a guy like Klose and detect within 5 minutes what English team was showing up that day, what do u think teams see and feel when greece gets on the field? and how does that change o theor approach to the game against us?

i am convinced in watching this world cup ( i have the luxury of being able to watch as i work) i believe that our team could have made favorable showings agisnt ANY team in this tournament. If they played with the will and determination for 90 minutes like they did agaisnt 1-0 Ukraine game, SK would have been toast....i am convinced...but again otto killed their spirit by treating SK like they were brazil....no faith whatsoever....

i am sure we will, at some point, lament otto not being around....we will....but his biggest accomplishment was to show the greek team that they CAN win - there is no substitute for the expereince of winning..its makes everything else possible, real and attainable.....

lets hope the next coach has the good sense not to abandon the things that made us successful - defense wins (just look at england and the like) but we need to be able to score more easily.....

[gcp]

manga, I disagree. This NT couldnot/wouldnot be able to take on eyeball to eyeball a Germany, Argentina, Spain, Uruguay, or Brazil. Beyond the mental aspect, which I grant you is of outmost importance, these teams also have a balance of experience & youth, with a plethora of skill, stamina, speed, and physical strength. Our boys may be tall but they are not strong. That’s been proven time and again when they too happily laid down at the smallest of contact with their opponents. Hell, even though they may happen to be taller they could not even win a header from the SK players!

Look, we've been way over classed abroad since I can remember, and I personally can remember back to the mid 60s. All I can think of are very few spurts of success, with 2004 being our outmost in European football. That's the true measuring stick of our proper societal perceptions, and stick-to-itiveness , or lack thereof, so if we don't fix this first we will continue to suck wind, as a nation, in just about any area we care to compete in. Life alone, as most of us appreciate, is nothing but constant competition so the sooner we come to grips with it the quicker we'll have hopes of advancing as a nation.

[mangas21]

hey g, its always a pleasure to hear your "macro" driven reasoning and rational.....its at the heart of everything we do.....

and your descriptions of other squads is right on as well.....

i think we define eye-to-eye differently. i have learned that every game is a different dynamic at work...every goal changes the dimensions of each game....its a matter of styles and how u execute.....

if our team came out with confidence in themselves and in the game plan- they would have executed 10000% better and i believe form what i have seen, beaten sk.....against argentina, that first goal was a gift from the set piece - lazy out of position play.....even playing lackluster football, they made an above average showing....look italy, france, and several other squads exited early.....

missed opportunites kill me......if we had brazil, arg & spain in our group - ok maybe getting bounced is easier to swallow...

but this group, this is no reason why we did not advance....and in the knockout stages, i think we would have rasied our game (for sure) becuase we were feeling confident and proud etc..........anything could happpen in one game, and we play it differently rather than gathering points to finsih top two in the group.

so i agree, we may not stack up man for man, but i think u would have seen a different team if we moved on.....it all goes back to SK......i fault the players also, becuase they should have taken matters in their own hands and punished the SK's ...the first 5 minutes, sets the tone - and if we were confident and hungry, we would have made the statement early and often - disrupting their play, timing and rhythm.......basically dictate the game and the pace.....

man, it all boils down to confidence and belief in your ability.....soccer is the type of game where the physicality is intimate and your presence can be felt immediately and statements made clearly........its what we do best....tough, rugged, physical, disruptive play....why we did not impose our will against those SK lightweights i will never know.......coach or players? who knows

look i am very critical of this NT team.....very realistic....whicj you know....but, from what i have seen, i think our A game, would have given most teams trouble and everyone would have felt much better with our showing.......problem is even the nigeria game was, to me, maaaaaaybe, a B game.......we never quite saw the full potential of this team......but ------ you know what thye say - what you do is what you are.......so if u look at it from that point of view - we deserve where we finished - nothing more , nothing less...........but i still think a win against SK would have changed the course of our display.......maybe not the world cup sitting in the parthenon, but alot more thrills for sure...

[gcp]

manga, no doubt our NT could have done better but sweet 16 would have been, naturally, the end of the line. Take the USA for example, the result was fair in my mind because Ghana was the better team with more strength, stamina, skill and the all important want....plus they seem to have the USA's number so the mental aspect as you point out probably weighed the USA down. Could have it easily gone the other way? Surely, but that would not have been the natural order of things, as it was proven not to be with Greece. I fully agree with you that at this level any sub-standard team fielding its A game can beat any good team fielding its C or D game (think Greece Albania after Euro 2004) but that's not the natural order of things, and the natural order of thing is what usually pans out.

Once again, big picture you and I agree so you won’t get a substantive argument out of me file.

[mangas21]

g, again we see the same thing...it leads to many different directions, one being what is the natural order of things? is it what people expect? or is it what actually occurs, thereby creating a new order? if greece produced consistent result since 04, then the natural order of things as it relates to their performances would be viewed differently... HMMMMMM.....anyway, for another time...the fact is we are a mediocre side, becuase we produce inconmsistent results....why? many reasons, all of which have been touched upon by everyone on the thread.

my point is that characteristics or elements of sports and performance can be broken down into qualitative and quantitative......by way of example, in baseball a batter is going to fail 7.5 times out of 10 on average. A basketball player is going to shoot between 40-50 percent from the floor on average. These quantitative factors are easily measured, and their success rates are consistent for the most part. But it does not mean that teh baseball player cant run hard to the base every time or that teh basketbal player does not maintain focus and form when he shoots. Same with greece nt, every cross wont be perfect, every shot wont find the back of the net....but it does not mean that the qualitative aspects should suffer. They have those in their hands - hustel, effort, will, etc etc etc....There is no excuse for inconsistency when it comes to those elements...and, i argue those attribute in soccer have a bigger impact on the game that quantitative ones.

Our A game is premised on qualitative elements. We can control. Effort, unity, passion, drive, determination, presence.....in soccer team unity and collective sense of tactic and purpose count for alot....everyone has to pull together in same dirction ofr 90 minutes....these things are in our hands....effort and passion never take a day off unless the players dont feel llike exerting themselves....thats what kills me about this team...the soft skills take days off and it should not be that way....

[gcp]

manga, I'm done talking to you! I feel like I'm talking to myself, in public, and that's not at all healthy :LOL:

Still waiting on a PM btw.....

[Euro2004]

I've been a big critic of Rehaggel when he's deserved it, most recently against South Korea. People here seem to be getting carried away with the criticism though. The fact is we've achieved an awful lot under Rehaggel and perhaps the time has come for someone to take us to that next step, but if you were told 9 years ago that Rehaggel would take us from the depths of incompetence to where we are now, we'd have all laughed.

I was disappointed with the end result in this world cup (going out in the group stages) particularly because we'd have actually had a chance of making it through to the semi finals if we did get out of the group because our potential opponents would have been Uruguay then Ghana! In terms of the performances in the games themselves though we were great in the last 2 in my opinion.

There is still a clear problem with "psychology" because just like in 2008, it took a shockingly bad first game for us to start showing some balls & heart. Even then, it took a Nigerian red card for our players to react. That doesn't necessarily undermine the win against them because going down to 10 men isn't always a sing that one team will dominate. Germany went down to 10 men against Serbia and although they lost, they dominated. Australia went down to 10 men against Ghana and were the better team in the 2nd half, etc. The important question to ask is why did it take a red card to make us believe and play with passion?

Against Argentina we were superb as a defensive unit and anyone that called for us to open up and attack simply doesn't understand the game. Sorry if that sounds arrogant but we do not have the players to play an open game against a team with the attacking potency of Argentina. Our best hope was to keep them to zero and go for it in the last 10 mins, unfortunately we conceded just before that final 10 min period. However, if Samaras had scored that sitter and we then held on everyone would have been hailing a great tactical display. The other option would have been to attack. We'd have conceded 5 and gone home disgraced. Look at North Korea as a great case study. They approached just one game defensively, against Brazil and lost merely 2-1 in a very respectable display. They then tried a more adventurous approach against Portugal and Ivory Coast and lost 7-0 and 3-0.

Now before anyone says, "yes but we are stronger than North Korea", i agree, but just because the scoreline might not have been 7-0 the result would have been the same. Look at Chile trying to attack Brazil. In qualifying they lost to Brazil 4-2 and 3-0 before also losing 3-0 the other day. A "decent" team cannot "out attack" a world class team, they will get smashed. The only way to beat them is to stunt them.

In summary, i have no doubt that if we'd approach the entire tournament in the way we did in the last one and a half games we'd have performed very well at this world cup. The criticism needs to be curbed therefore. Furthermore everyone is talking as if the absence of Rehaggel will lead to success. I am not convinced. The psychology of our players is poor and the quality within the squad is mediocre. Our best hope will always be to be defensively sound. Rehaggel's approach and tactics were great more often than not, it was simply his team selection that was in question. This is why i've said my ideal manager now would be someone defensive-minded, like Felix Magath. Because of this, this new era really scares me. How will we react? We do not have the talent pool to guarantee that we will continue to qualify for major tournaments on a regular basis. I really am concerned and hope we don't all regret forcing Rehaggel out.

Whatever happens, please don't forget that this is really the end of the most wonderful era in the history of Greek football. Let's not forget the magical moments that we will never forget... Euro 2004, featuring in the Confederations Cup, the qualifying campaign for Euro 2008 including the win in Turkey, our first ever World Cup win, etc. So all that's left to say is thank you for the memories Rehaggel, Topalidis, the players and everyone else involved for making my sporting dreams come true. :gr:

[andrew_g]

In summary, i have no doubt that if we'd approach the entire tournament in the way we did in the last one and a half games we'd have performed very well at this world cup. The criticism needs to be curbed therefore. Furthermore everyone is talking as if the absence of Rehaggel will lead to success. I am not convinced. The psychology of our players is poor and the quality within the squad is mediocre. Our best hope will always be to be defensively sound. Rehaggel's approach and tactics were great more often than not, it was simply his team selection that was in question. This is why i've said my ideal manager now would be someone defensive-minded, like Felix Magath. Because of this, this new era really scares me. How will we react? We do not have the talent pool to guarantee that we will continue to qualify for major tournaments on a regular basis. I really am concerned and hope we don't all regret forcing Rehaggel out.

I agree about us being too critical, but can't agree that we played the right game against Argentina. The key to winning games is to keep the ball away from the other team and frustate them. Instead we rolled over and gave the Argentines several gifts. If we couldn't shut out Moldova and Latvia, it stands to reason that we couldn't shut out the powerful Argentines. I am not saying go for an all out attack but if Samaras had Salpi as his strike partner we could have sprung a surprise.

[athinaios]

To add to it,

Klose said....

“

[gcp]

Euro, no way we would/could have taken on Uruguay or Ghana, wishful thinking on your part. They are loaded with youth, talent, and heart while we are loaded with kaka, and I am not referring to the Brazilian #10. You say our NT played great the last couple of games? I musta watched two totally different games than you did. We were defensively superb against Argentina? Messi danced the tango time and again against 4-5 of our superb defensive leventes at a time for God's sake! 2-0 may be superb to you but superb in my book would have meant 0-0 or 0-1 for Greece, and a positive move forward to the round of 16. See, words still matter with me and they should matter to all of us Greeks. No wonder we never escape mediocrity if we consider such performances superb. And 2004 is history, 6 years have gone by so please, lets give it a rest so we can maybe repeat another miracle before they put me 6 feet under?

[mangas21]

yo G, whats PM?

[gcp]

manga, personal message, I sent you one and was expecting a response.