Euro2004 Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 Olympiakos will be in pot 3 of the CL for next season. So they will draw one team from each of the pots 1, 2 and 4. Assuming the stronest teams make it through the qualifying rounds (Olympiakos will be in pot 3 regardless of what happens) these will be the pots. POT A: Barcelona, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Bayern, Real Madrid, Porto, Inter. POT B: Milan, Lyon, Shakhtar, Valencia, Benfica, Villarreal, CSKA, Marseille. POT D: Lille, Basel, BATE Borisov, Dortmund, Maccabi Haifa, Napoli, Dinamo Zagreb, Otelul Galati. In my opinion the perfect outcome for Olympiakos would be: Inter CSKA Olympiakos Galati The worst outcome would be: Barcelona Milan/Lyon Olympiakos Lille/Dortmund Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genome Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 I'd go for Benfica instead of CSKA, agree on the rest though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Euro2004 Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 In fact you're probably right, I just based that on the fact that PAOK were unlucky not to get past CSKA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pao123 Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 as far as pot a and b, it will be difficult to predict their ideals draw..especially b where the teams could be very different after the transfer window...for instance, villareal could get rid of rossi, pick up a cool 35 million and re-invest heavily in the team..or they could not reinvest wisely and have a worst team next year... marseille could be a good draw, some of their quality players (ie lucho) want out of the club...i think they are having financial slow downs too so who knows..facing russian clubs in the first round is sometimes bad news as they are in the middle of their seasons and are much better fitness wise.. traveling there in the winter also seems brutal.. one thing is for sure and that is that the CL is getting more competitive..there could also be some suprise packages in there..napoli and dortmund are quality..olympiakos need to focus on improving their away record if they want to have any hopes of advancing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Euro2004 Posted June 3, 2011 Author Share Posted June 3, 2011 one thing is for sure and that is that the CL is getting more competitive..there could also be some suprise packages in there..napoli and dortmund are quality..olympiakos need to focus on improving their away record if they want to have any hopes of advancing...... and their defence. The most important attribute an average club can have is a solid defence. Greece (2004), Porto (2004), Liverpool (2005), Braga (this season), all shared that one thing in common, a solid defence. Olympiakos will never go away to England or Spain and out attack a CL team. They need to be solid enough to absorb pressure and keep it tight because as long as the game is goaless you're always in for a chance. In fact i'd go as far as to say that in the last 15 years every single Greek team that has had a good defence has done well in Europe. PAO's in 2001/2002 for instance had an impressive backline of Vokolos, Henriksen, Kyrgiakos and Fyssas, with holding midfielders Basinas and Paolo Souza protecting them. Class! Compare that to our more recent performances where we have been poor at the back. Big difference. In more recent times Olympiakos' team that made the last 16 of the CL under Lemonis was all about being solid and playing on the counter and they qualified from a very hard group including Real Madrid, Lazio and Werder. This year PAOK and Aris' great runs in the Europa League were also about a solid defence. Even the Greek national team is the same. In 2004 we were solid, at this last world cup we conceded the losing goal to Korea via a huge defensive error, while the goal against Nigeria and the first against Argentina came from an inability to defend set pieces despite that the fact that we have such a tall team. It's all about defence. Olympiakos don't have the defense to do well in the CL. All sports are the same. Nadal, Federer and Murray are top players with superb defensive games, in boxing Mayweather is a defensive master and is undefeated and arguably pound for pound king, while Bernard Hopkins is all about defence and just became the oldest champion (in any weight) in history. While I'm not an expect on basketball people seem to say that Greece won 2005 Euros with a mean defence too. It's the most important thing in cup competition football. In a league format where you're one of the two strongest teams then attacking and the ability to score many goals is most important to consistently break down stubborn teams, but European cups are different because you play stronger teams in a knockout competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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