J1078 Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 I would have rather seen our better line up versus Iceland to see how they compare and Skibbe should have used this line up against Montenegro. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreekLunatic Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 tziolis comes into the team we lose . our defence is very shaky with out manolas and sokratis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazarus Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrappeFetish Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 (edited) I like Kpaps in midfield a free flowing CB. The 2-3 games we've let him do that, our opponents rarely scored. Yes, Im a fan when Bayer 04 has him playing as a defensive mid. I call it "wrecking ball mode", or "bull in a china shop". When given freedom to move about, he just seems to create chaos for the other team with his aggression and surprising athleticism given his size. Any other NBA fans out there who know of a player by the name of Ron Artest (now known as Metta World Peace)? I always tell people that K-paps is the Ron Artest of European Football. Never boring with the crazy eyes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvkv9QiuYJM Edited March 29, 2016 by FrappeFetish 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brklyngrk Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 We all can agree there is a significant drop in quality from Papastathopoulos/Manolas to Moras/Oikonomou. This was a friendly were the coach decided to try different things, hopefully lessons were learned and we can go on. The positive is that Fortounis has shown to be a difference maker. He will only get better as he continues to play with the team. Say what you want about Karnezis but he is not as bad as many make him out to be. Currently, we do not have anyone better than him. I remember watching Kpaps a few years ago when he was at Schalke. Shalke was playing Benfica in the CL. He must have put in one of the best games I can ever remember him playing as a DM. He was everywhere!!! Sadly, he can not stay healthy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgelaz Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 (edited) Fortounis looks so dominate out there though wow. I hope he continues his upward climb. One thing we forget to mention is the HUGE hole that Karagounis left since we were last really good (World Cup 2014). He was still a key part of the team. Edited March 29, 2016 by georgelaz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J1078 Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 We have serious problems, The entire world use to talk about our defence and how they were going to break us down, now without our defence we have nothing to intimidate any team, we have become so easy to play against. You can think of what our best scoring options up front and what is going to be our best attacking threat until we are blue in the face, as long as we play defence like this we will be a garbage team. Since when did we start thinking we are better team and we can explore different styles of play? If we don't play back and shut down the opposition with very boring defensive play and squeak out 1-0 wins we will never qualify for a tournament again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgelaz Posted March 29, 2016 Share Posted March 29, 2016 We don't have a lot of options but our top options are good. injuries will wreck us. so hopefully everyone stays healthy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgelaz Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Fortounis and Karelis seem to be the only attacking threats we have nowadays. Fortounis will leave Greece at the end of the season, just hope he finds the right club, him at benfica might be cool. with Mitroglou & Samaris 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dikefale11 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 For me one of the biggest disapointments was the turnout, i understand its a friendly but that turnout was attrocious Tuesday night or not the game was at 8.30 not 11. I was watching highlights of other friendly games today and all the stadiums were mostly full from the look of things. Im not too dissapointed as the team out there is not our starting 11ada, a good 5/6 starters were missing, the worrying part is out backups are so bad, Tziolis is really the best CM we have im the whole of Greece, seriously? Moras? What? We are so far behind quality wise its sad, i can thibk of litwrally 5/6 good Greek players. The sad thing is this problem will never be solved, money needs to be invested at grass roots level, from the looks of things only 2/3 clubs in Greece produce good quality players, the rest are for the poutso. On another note i dont believe Skibbe is the guy for us, the lineup and subs today say it all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makynia Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I can't believe how poorly we defend set plays. We copped 3 goals today, 2 from corners, 1 from a free kick. This has been a problem for a while now dating back to the World Cup. I don't believe Manolas and Sokratis would have made a difference today. They have been just as guilty as well. I thought Oikinomou as good as he was vs Montenegro he was piss poor today. Very bad defending on that corner and beaten badly several times and quite a few giveaways as well. We have to be more aggressive on those set plays. Goalie especially has to punch away the ball or catch it not let their players get in his way and be out of position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nikod Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I can't imagine paying money for a friendly in 2016 and seeing Tziolis (ugh!), Moras (whom I respect, but come on) and Papazoglou (who? Over vellios??) in the starting lineup. What a sad joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgelaz Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 guys let's be real. when we were up 2-0 we all got very optimistic. I said before, I'll say it again. We're top heavy. Which isn't the worst of things, but we can't do CRAZY experiments even at a friendly. we need to keep a winning psychology. Diamantakos, Velios, Patsatzoglou, Stafilidis, Kapino, Taxi, Oikonomou, Tziolis, is too much we only really should've put Velios, Taxi, and Pelka in there. keep it to 3. even without our 4 key players we looked great until we put on our C TEAM. We got good talent up to the 16th player if u ask me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Tsamados Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 What formation were we actually playing and how were we lining up? Why did we only start with two midfielders? WTF was going through Skibbe's brain to decide on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbxk508 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 (edited) You can't blame the coach for trying out players in friendlies and he practically used everyone in these two matches. The positives are we scored 4 goals in 2 games, which if you take out the 4-3 win against Hungary was 2 more than our campaign in the Euro qualifiers. Also, Fortounis and Petsos look class players and important players going forward. The negatives are 1) we cannot defend set pieces, which in the past was our strength and 2) we concede a dumb goal straight after scoring. Even with Montenegro we conceded from a corner after scoring and we had Manolas and Soc in the starting line up. We need to find our best DM and soon. Tziolis not the answer. I like Samaris as an offensive DM, but historically has shown to be one of the worst at marking players on set pieces. Maybe K Pap is the answer, but will he ever be 100%. On a lighter note, lets face it we can't beat any island, fishermem and the like. Scibbe needs to get this right before Cyprus. Edited March 30, 2016 by kbxk508 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Tsamados Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 (edited) You can't blame a manager for trying out players no, granted. But you can blame him for playing 6 defenders, 2 midfielders and 2 strikers. Anyone can see that wasn't going to work. He had enough midfielders on the bench to actually field a semi normal/ functional team, instead of banging square pegs into round holes. Edited March 30, 2016 by Chris Tsamados 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbxk508 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I didn't see the match but he started Oikonomou, Moras and Siovas as back 3 and Torosides, Tziolis, Fortounis, Stafylidis and Holebas in MF and a front two of Karelis and Papazoglou. I get what you are saying though. Used Toro and Holebas as WB and Stafylidis in a midfielder role rather than a Tachtsides who is not getting much club game time or Petsos who hadn't trained much. What other options? Tzavellas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RED SHERIFF Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 No reason why he could not have gone with: ............Kapino....................... toro.......oikonomou....siovas...staf .................petsos............... ......fortounis..mandalos..holebas ............karelis..............vellios.. papazoglou has no place in this squad......... kourbelis....bakasetas were worth a call up....so to bouchalakis if fit... this 3 CD....Is not a long term solution 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dean97 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 In my opinion say what you want about Siovas but he saved us a couple of times. The score could have been more. Oikonomou looked like he couldn't win a header all game. Holebas passing is not good enough. Stafylidis is a better passer of the ball. I think Skibbe also wants Stafylidis somewhere on the team. Vellios looked good with his touches. Karelis and Fortounis are carrying this team in attack. Papazoglou has no place in the team. Petsos I believe is a good player. Overall the team looks promising. I also believe if we had one of Manolas, Sokratis or Papadopoulos starting we would have drew this match. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pash Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Would kpaps have blocked with his crutch? I think that's a yellow at least 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockafeller Skank Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 For those who watched this match... Would you say you saw enough from Moras & Tziolis today to say surely they should not be picked again given age & form? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J1078 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 It seems like who every we try our back end has failed us time and time again, wether it be missed coverage on set pieces or horrible giveaway or weak goaltending something just doesn't seem right with not only our entire team but our defenders as well. Not being able to keep a clean sheet against the worst soccer teams in Europe clearly shows we have a huge uphill battle ahead of us. At this point nobody knows the answers. I understand Skibbe is new and he wants to try new players to see what he has but the subs he choose was ridiculous in my opinion. There are guys that we never need to see on this team and honestly after yesterday I don't even want to see Oikonomou play on this team he was horrible and got so exposed yet alone heading right to the feet of our opponents. Tziolis, Moras, papzoglou shouldn't play again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brklyngrk Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 The team looked better than it had at any point under the last two coaches. The coach is trying to see what he has, whether it be Moras or even Tziolis. He is seeing this team for the first time and as we all know, injuries can and do happen. The thing I like is that he is trying to use the best 11 players and not necessarily limiting them to defined positions. Many of us have stated that Holebas may be better off playing up as a winger in games were we need pace. By putting Stafylidis in there in mid, not his natural position, he showed that he would be willing to do that. I rather he experiment and learn about the players now then doing this in September. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teke817 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 (edited) Because generally they are garbage with poor first touches and the Euro quals highlighted that fact, game after game after game after game that they played in. To be fair, when an entire squad absolutely stinks up the joint and collectively plays like hot pooh, even lukewarm praise (Kone) and relatively high praise (Lazaros) is actually a huge achievement, particularly when you get no help from teammates. (See below - player ratings from the Faroe Islands game 11/2014 - a lifetime ago, I admit...) Besides, when your midfielders are all 6's (Samaris/Tachtsidis/Tziolis) except for Fortounis, then I don't think you have the luxury of dismissing any players that can actually dribble and shoot, regardless of how inadequate they may seem at times. http://www.sport24.gr/football/ellada/ethniki_elladas/h-kritikh-twn-paiktwn-ths-ethnikhs.3142882.html Edited March 30, 2016 by teke817 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teke817 Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 We will not be allowed in the quals from April 1st. Kontonis refused to back down to UEFA and FIFA. Our new objective is Euro 2020. Kontonis may not be in power then and we can apologise to UEFA/FIFA and get reinstated for that tournament. I agree with Moras, even if we have a football "Grexit" if that is what it takes to clean up Greek soccer, I think it's worth it ... Qualifying for one tournament is insignificant compared to the long term health of an entire league, as well as a National football federation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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