Suggested Call Ups, Starting 11

[ausgreek]

I meant 2 DM's before, not fullbacks, apologies. Gianniotas has attacking prowess. The Skibbe should trust him more.

[Ellada2004]

Lazaros should definitely be given another opportunity to play with the NT.

[Argy]

20 hours ago, ausgreek said:

Kpaps best pos is CB. He is a starting player for the Pirates though, agreed. This would mean Samaris would be on the bench and as far as the last match indicated, Virus deserves to be there as he was outstanding. Can anyone see Samaris being benched for KPaps or even Taxi? More chance of me having a chance with Kylie Jenner.

Yea I could see that. We've seen it before. Should see it again. 

[ausgreek]

Is Alexandros Tziolis the new Kats? The elder statesman effect according to the Skibbe. If so, he will be there till he's 36.

Edited June 19, 2017 by ausgreek

[Rockafeller Skank]

Im pretty sure Tziolis is somehow a flag of the team. Someone who has been with it long. Maybe the team wants like for that. Like Katsouranis stayed till 2015 despite his physique not allowing him to.

[ausgreek]

Chelsea chasing Manolas from Roma...must be a good player. I would say future captain. May be more composed than Sokratis in that role.

What the Pirates have been showing is more solidarity, chemistry look again as though they can take on all teams and be respectable, even against the likes of Faroe Islands.

[ausgreek]

We have a lack of wingers cause the coaches past and present are reluctant to give them a fair shot. Expand the talent pool, two LW and two RW to start with and all of a sudden there are wingers. Let there be wingers!!

This way we can speculate less and see progress more. The only way to know. An out of sorts Mantalos stuck on the left is Not any more productive that an enthusiastic natural winger.

Just bite the bullet! Gianniotas, Manthatis covering the right; Donis and perhaps Kolovos to cover the left. Skibbe should have them in the squad and keep giving them a run. Just do it re coach! Yulla.

[J1078]

He should also give Lazaros another shot even if it's a bench option.

[Dean97]

I agree with ausgreek and J1078. We should have natural wingers on this team. Manthatis and Gianniotas are good enough. Other wingers like Lamprou and Vlachodimos need to prove themselves more. Lazaros should be given another shot. Fetfatzidis is an obvious choice to have on this team. It's unfortunate as he is capable to change the game for us and is a greater threat to any teams defence. Pelkas is another option. He is a number 10 aswell. 

Winger/Striker like Limnios can also be on this team. He is fast and skillful and has a good shot. I see a lot of potential in this player. Also people should have a look at the Olympiakos friendly today. 4 academy players were involved in the goals scored. 

Also I wanted to talk about Mantalos and Fortounis. There is no doubt these players are going to be the difference for us in creating chances. But they look like there positions are home and hosed. They need some sort of push as they are not as effective as they usually are. Maybe Androutsos or Pelkas need to step in and put pressure. It's very unfortunate that we don't have enough attacking midfielders. Ninis and Kone are always out of form, Fetfatzidis won't get called up, Bakasetas is not good enough, Androutsos is still young but is good enough to be given a shot. Who else is there? This not our major problem though it should not be ignored. 

Our main problem is our wingers. We don't play natural wingers. That is our problem. It's simple, Donis should be on the left with Manthatis as the back up. The right wing position should be Gianniotas. I don't know if Kolovos is good on the winger as he is central. Maybe if we play natural wingers our central midfielders can play better passes. Defensively we are very good. We also have a very in form striker. We just need to get it together in the midfield/wide midfield.

[ausgreek]

As you touched on Deano, the rest of the midfield can look so much better with better wingers. As can the stricker. Out of sorts Mantalos or later on Karelis on the left is a patch up job continuing.

I bet Bakasetas is better more centrally and he is out on the RW. This is not doing him justice. His shot on goal is world class, so he has to wait on an opportunity centrally. 

Basically, if your good enough your old enough, you have 18 year olds fighting wars and people highly dependant on them;  what, the young players can't play high level soccer? Eveytime youth get a shot, they usually repay you. If it takes half a dozen matches, so be it-off the bench

There are no excuses for playing players out of position, given they don't perform there. The pirates are suffering as I and others seem to be. World class players are given a shot as teenagers and become great players ie. Hames Rodriguez, Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, now Marcus Rashford etc.

 

[Boxou]

looking up the depth of the team, in my opinion we have a good shot at qualifying via playoffs if we make it there and avoid italy or spain, always assuming that france and portugal will top their groups. may i list them below:

gks: karnezis, kapino, gianniotis, glykos

dfs: sokratis, manolas, siovas, papadopoulos, stafylidis, torosidis, oikonomou, retsos, tzavellas, lykogiannis, koutroubis

mfs: samaris, tachtsidis, fortounis, siopis, kourmpelis, mantalos, tziolis, zeca, maniatis, petsos, kolovos

fws: mitroglou, karelis, vellios, donis, gianniotas, mpakasetas, christodoulopoulos, fetfatzidis, pelkas

 

keep in mind this is a 35-man squad so as it obvious, the coach will have to cut down 12 of them. so you can exclude the 10 who you think are the most mediocre and have no place in the ethniki and you have a good side, capable of qualifying to russia. 

Edited June 24, 2017 by Boxou

[RED SHERIFF]

any talk around Limnios or Lamprou is way to premature

[Dean97]

Who do you suggest should play on the wings? Have you got any ideas? You always say this player is not good enough or it's to early play this player. Who is good enough then? Limnios and Lamprou have potential to be in this team. Mantalos and Bakasetas are not wingers. Fetfatzidis does not get chosen. Pelkas is overlooked and Manthatis needs more game time. Gianniotas is the only option aswell as Donis.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Dean97

[jason]

Gianniotas  and Donis should be in the 11. 

Edited June 28, 2017 by jason

[Rockafeller Skank]

Our only decent players on the wings can be Gianniotas and Donis. Skibbe uses Mantalos and Bakasetas because they work a lot during the game and run up and down to help defense. Skibbe is parking the bus better than Mourinho and you are complaining so much lol. We ve conceded 3 goals in 6 matches, and found on our way teams with elite attacking players Bosnia and Belgium. 3 goals in 6 matches. And you people complaining why the team, one year after its reforming/ressurection is not playing as good as Spain or Barcelona. Laughable.

[Dean97]

No but we played Salpingidis on the wing and he is a striker. This was when Greece were doing well with Karagounis and Katsouranis. We have to score goals if we want to win. We can't just rely on the defence. That's why we need actual wingers to create something. Donis is an example against Bosnia. Mantalos and Bakasetas do well to come back and defend but are not providing a threat on the wings. I appreciate the form we are in at the moment. I just hope it continues with a few more goals.

[Dean97]

Gianniotas works hard aswell in my opinion. Donis doesn't. Donis just knows where to run and attacking. He doesn't run back much. They should be our wingers. If we need to have Mantalos/Bakasetas in the starting 11 have one of them on the right wing and one of Gianniotas/Donis on the left. Manthatis has potential to be a great winger. I've seen some Olympiakos games and he is a workhorse. He doesn't give up in defence and plays with heart. 

[jason]

Mantalos cost us  getting 3 points vs Bosnia. Didn't do much, maybe he will return to form for NT but if your having a bad game sub him off. I dont see how he helps defense either... He is a good player when in form which is the key word. 

[Dean97]

He does do well in defence but missed that chance to give us the three points. Gianniotas would not have missed that. Donis and Mitroglou did well to setup up that chance. 

This would be my team:

              Karnezi

Toro Mano Kyriako Stafy

       Samari/Taxi Zeca

Gianniota Fortouni Bakaseta

                   Mitro/Kareli

We should put Mantalos and Donis on the bench and bring them on when we need them. Against Estonia Sokrati is suspended. Either Samaris or Tachtsidis should start alongside Zeca. Hope Kourbelis shows how good he is to warrant another call up and hopefully start in the future. Siopis should be Maniatis replacement in the future aswell. 

 

[J1078]

Bakaseta should not be starting we have much better options.

[Rockafeller Skank]

If you guys wanna search for every player that cost us a goal or a point/points in this campaign you re gonna laugh to the players remaining.

Sokratis got baited man to man from Lukaku, thought hed turn left, he turned right. But noone complaining that his mistake cost us a 3 pointer and possibly first place in Belgium. Because he is Sokratis, right?

Mistakes happen. How many mistakes did the Bosnians do in offence? How many missed opportunities they had? You only remember the Mantalos one. But if we take into account their misses vs ours, we d lose somewhat like 4-2 on that match. Be happy we got the one point.

Also laughable is that people saw Donis on the wings once and demand him to be there because he is a natural winger. He is not. He is a striker as well. He did look a lot better than anyone else we ve tried there, that's for sure.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Rockafeller Skank

[jason]

How you compare lukaku goal which was 50-50 to missing an open net? Anyways i hope he just had off game...

[Dean97]

It was Sokratis fault but look at all the other times he has saved our asses. Without him we would have lost against Belgium and Bosnia. He can't do everything even though I think he can. He is the most important player in this team. 

[Rockafeller Skank]

Mantalos also secured the 3 pointer to a very threatening cyprus, by making the score 2-0.

I am not comparing anyone with Lukaku. Read what I said. Sokratis got baited to that goal, thinking Lukaku is gonna turn the other way. Watch the video again and again your baby boy Sokratis εχει μεγάλη ευθύνη. If you look the highlights of the Bosnia-Greece game, Sokratis made 2-3 crucial mistakes as well, just wasn't Dzeko's day. If you wanna look to individual mistakes, as I said, we ll only probably be left with players that didn't play with the Ethniki yet, because the mistake factor is key to this sport. Positioning, good passing and transition in the midfield, even a free kick choice that don't go well are all mistakes. They are all professionals. They surely can exchange a couple of passes. They surely can cross and shoot. But the point is doing so on the right time and under the pressure from a strong opponent. Me and you from our Kanape could do much better. But would we?

At the end of a day, a Greek side leaving without conceding in Bosnia is almost perfect. As Bosnians said to their forums. Holding a 0-1 in Belgium and Mantalos scoring that goal could actually mean we were by 90% qualified for the World Cup right now. But it could have been vise versa, and Belgium scoring more than once to us and Bosnia as well. Take the result and be happy as I said. We re no Spain, we are no Bercelona. We just stepped outside a reforming period and we re gonna need time to reach pot 1-2 again, if the aim and the fournies of new Greek players allows it.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Rockafeller Skank

[Dean97]

That's was a good goal by Mantalos against a very average to bad Cyprus team. What I'm saying is you can't miss a chance like he had against Bosnia. It was on a plate for him. These important games are crucial. I am still frustrated and annoyed that he missed. 

Also Sokratis had a few mistakes against Bosnia, but imagine him not being there at all, we would've suffered a 3-0 defeat. I think what he does for for club and country is a bit underrated by some people. Manolas is more prone to mistakes than Sokratis. But they a very good centre backs. So is K.Papdopoulos. 

I am very content with where we are at the moment. But I can't stand seeing better opportunities being lost because of the circumstances I pointed out. We should have beaten Belgium and Bosnia when we had the chance but what do you do, I'm happy so far because we have improved from where we were from 2 years ago and we all have seen massive improvement from the team. 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Dean97