HellasLEAF Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Well that's it. End of an era. This is truly rock bottom now. This is truly sad. All we can do is hope that something is being done to get this team ready for WC qualifying now. I can stomach missing a tournament after the run we have dad. But two will be pretty damn brutal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greek Style Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Well that's it. End of an era. This is truly rock bottom now. This is truly sad. All we can do is hope that something is being done to get this team ready for WC qualifying now. I can stomach missing a tournament after the run we have dad. But two will be pretty damn brutal. Re I can't believe it is minimum 3 years until we see the Ethniki in a big tournament again. Heartbreaking stuff. I am gutted. This feeling will be multiplied X100 12 months from now when countries are gearing up for the Euro 2016 and we are practice bunnies for them in useless friendlies. Fk me this is really fkd up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ausgreek Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 You can join the army and the players that aren't putting in, can join you. and your 20 cent comment lefka. We either believe that the team are better than that, and aren't putting in, or we accept that they are Not good enough and Faroe Islands are better, and would beat us again. Which one is it? I gauge that most people on this forum believe the ethnici should of won cause they are better. Even a suggestion a 2nd string team should wipe them too. So, players must put in and stop looking to attract attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dean97 Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I thought i show this to everyone: 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greek Style Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I actually really like what he had to say. Everyone is hurting. We need to rediscover our identity and we need to start preparing for WC 2018 qualification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AEK86 Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Well that was a disgusting result, guess the old adage holds true: hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. These players should all be ashamed of themselves. Quite frankly, if they don't want to be on the field then f*** off back to your beaches and bouzoukia, we'll find others that are proud to wear the shirt. If I can find the slightest silver lining in all of this it would be that we can now play the rest of these matches pressure-free. Hopefully that means cleaning out the gutters and blooding the new players to join the core going forward to WC18.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbxk508 Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 ^Socratis interview. Interesting how he said, once they lost a couple of matches, that it was very difficult to reverse it. Loss of confidence. Being a team sport, the individuals must have trust and confidence in each other. Which is clearly now a major part of the problem. The only way back is hard work, players who are committed to the cause, prepared to sacrifice and support their teamates, selfless and willing to run hard for 90 mins. Zagorakis was leader not because he was most skillful, fastest. He worked his arse off, got the respect of all the players on the team and that rubbed off on the rest of the team. Coach needs to find those players who willing to do that. Rehagel took a team of nobodies and won the Euro. In his first game in charge, he lost 5-1 to Finland, then 1 month later nearly beat England in England. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kolokotronis99tripoli Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 It seems very few, Socratis being one of them, actually played like they cared. I believe there are so many problems within the ethniki and EPO and you can't say talent is the problem or we overestimated our players when only 2 of the starting 11 play in Greece and our team had players from Portugal Italy and Germany. talent isn't the issue, we have no leader and the team seem to have lost the fire and the desire Greek teams are known for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbxk508 Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Here's a really fascinating read, about why Zikos was shown the door in 2003-04. Rehagel was himself an eccentric old man. A genius IMO. They should make a flick about this one day. To think that Rehagel opted for Katsouranis in favour of Zikos who was playing for Monaco, being one of the elite teams in Europe at the time. http://www.contra.gr/Columns/Mythbusters/giati-o-rexagkel-den-adikhse-ton-zhko-to-2004.3387465.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pash Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 That's a good interview by Sokratis. He speaks sense. Brings up some points that I'll put into a more relevant thread. My less-angry thoughts on players: Karnezis - sloppy (a theme with this team). Can't pass to his own defenders without putting himself in danger Manolas - when's the last time this guy played well for the NT? The World Cup? I remember only one decent play, where he pulled a Sokratis and brought the ball into the opposing third before passing it to nobody. I thought this guy was supposed to be fast? Sokratis - I'm not sure if his inability to care for most of the game is offset by the goal he scored. Stafylidis - can't cover his area defensively, needs a lot of work Torosidis - I didn't think he was awful. Probably the best of our defenders. Kone/Lazaros - I'm putting them together because I can't tell them apart at this point. Sloppy, no form, no speed, can't shoot, can't pass. Pathetic. Samaris - he's horrific. Bereft of skill. Why wasn't Tachtsidis put in for him at halftime? Fetfatzidis - looked fat and disinterested. Some half-hearted attempts to pass and dribble were still much appreciated. I don't like his new haircut. Karelis - gave it a shot, was mostly invisible Mitroglou - The first time I've seen him actually try to run in well over a year. Had a nice dribble. Suffers from the same lack of support Klaus and Gekas had in previous matches, although most people around here will still try to claim they suck and he doesn't. A pale shadow of the player he was for a whopping six months. -subs- Mostly pointless. Will note that Ninis 100% should have started. Was still sloppy, but not as bad as the people we already have out there. Ninis and Tachtsidis might have made all the difference in this game. I can't see what we would have lost by having Moras in there instead of Manolas as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torontoblue Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 We better prepare ourselves for a decade or more of just qualifiers and not tournaments. There is no way Greece will even qualify for 2018, or the Euros after that. We are ranked 25 in the world right now, with 15 Euro teams ahead of us. After Saturdays embarrassment we will drop further down the chain. we will probably end up in pot 4 for the next round of qualifiers. If we can't get out of the easiest group during these qualifiers, and as the seeded team and to rub salt into the wound the top 2 qualify with the 3rd place going into the playoff's, how the hell are we going to qualify when we aren't even top seed or 2nd seed? Only 14 European teams qualify for the World cup. Its going to be down hill from here. The only solution is to invest in the youth. New infrastructure, proper youth development. We got to forget about this crop of players and think ahead about 10-15 yrs. The FA and government has to invest in the youth. Its the only way. But of course it won't happen with the financial situation going on in Greece. I'm old enough to remember what it was like to go years with out qualifying. When we qualified for the 1980 Euros(first time ever) it was like something unbelievable. then we had to wait 14 yrs for USA 94 and us Greeks were so proud, but thats what we were use to. Qualify every 15yrs was awesome. We got spoiled this last decade. I feel bad for the youth who are so use to having a team guaranteed every summer there is a tournament. Better prepare for some dark decades ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pash Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Falling into a lower pot is not the end of the world. If the team plays to its potential, we should be able to take down a few bigger countries in our next campaign. What the current crop of players can - must - do, is salvage what they can of the rest of the qualifiers. Every win will work to maintain whatever ranking we have left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPAO Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 If you want to make the tournament you earn it plain and simple. As bad as we have gotten getting a powerhouse in our group will do us some good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torontoblue Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Next qualifiers for 2018 only 13 Euro teams qualify.( i said 14 in my last post, was wrong) The nine 1st place teams go through and the best 8, 2nd place teams go into a playoff for the final 4 spots. The way the team is now, and with a chance of getting 2 big boys in the same group, i see no chance. The Fa and the government has to start investing money into the youth, the leagues, infrastructure, development, coaches, etc etc. Why do you think a country like Portugal thats small like Greece, poor, same problems has been a regular player on the big stage? Back in the 80's Carlos Queiroz drew up a blue print for youth soccer. What happened, Portugal went on to win back to back under 20 world cups in 89 and 91. Their youth teams are usually qualify for youth tournaments. they have also been winners in the under 16's, under 18's, under 21's. Since Euro 96 they have only missed out on France 98. And checking the standings they are 1st place in their group at the moment. The USA in the early 90's hired Carlos Queiroz to over haul their youth system in that country. Look at them now. I'm not saying hire Carlos Queiroz( ok maybe, lol) but we need to give the youth in the country the right tools to become better players. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPAO Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I thought i show this to everyone: I am glad he had the balls to face the media even though or media is pretty soft on our players. I like what he said and I think he is implying something when he talks about the players having to love the national team again and respect one another. I think there could be some bad seeds who could care less about being there and feel they are better then the others. I don't know how this all started because they seemed to be a very tight knit group at the world cup and played for the guy next to them. Perhaps it was the appointing of Ranieri and the culture change he may have tried to impose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 (edited) He nailed it. The NT politics are coming back something otto fixed....you could tell there was zero heart no drive to win this game, a game we needed to win while faroe played like it was a final even though they will never see one.......if we played with the same heart as faroe it would have been 3-1 us maybe 4. Sokratis is one of the few who played like he cared. Edited June 16, 2015 by jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPAO Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 Now it's a question of who is the right person to put in charge to correct this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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