Australia-greece(7 June 2016, Etihad Docklands Stadium, Melbourne)

[Akritis_1944]

Samaris apparently the best player on the pitch according the pundits.

[Greekoz]

Yep set pieces are our Achilles heel.

33,000 crowd

[Chris Tsamados]

Mantolas' goal, Quality is awful though:

 

[Akritis_1944]

People in Australia go on the herald sun website site and see the first headline on there

No surprise. "Violent foreigners". Typical and by the play book in how to vilify an ethnic group and a sport.

[kbxk508]

I don't think Australia got in our half of the pitch in the opening 10 minutes and we could have been 3-0 up after 20 minutes if Holebas scores. Aussies were never allowed to play their game and were clearly frustrated. I think that's a good sign, that we are maturing as a team.  

[kbxk508]

Greece slowed in the 2nd half, but never waivered from the win. You could see Scibbe urging the team towards the end of the game. In our last 7 matches, we have scored 2 or more goals in four of them. Another good sign.  

Edited June 7, 2016 by kbxk508

[PAOKSYD]

Who was saying australia is a good team? They should beat us?

Stop listening to fox sports and ausyralian media hype. Australia is junk.

Greece needs work off the park and inside epo to become a decent team. We have some good cattle but we dont have spirit and belief simple.

Christodopoulos is done. Need to keep working with fringe players and hope players like mavrias, mystakidis, foundas can develop along with guys like vellios, mandalos, bakasetas to bread some new players.

We have 5 - 7 solid players but a good side in world cup and euro canpaings needs alot more.

[paokarag4]

Some positives to take out of the game for sure. Bakestas had some nice touches, hopefully he can cement a spot in AEK's starting XI and have a big season. 

Maniati's goal, wow I didn't think he had that in him. That goal will go down in Greek football history! 

Our pressing was good and I was surprised we lasted till late in the game doing it. Interesting to see if that's the tactics we go with come WC qualifiers. Samaris, Stafylidi, Sokrati and Mantalos amongst our best

Edited June 7, 2016 by paokarag4

[Chris Tsamados]

would be cool if some aussie could upload the game somewhere so we can watch it full. These two games are the first NT games I have missed in living memory.

 

 

Here's a link to the First game in full:

 

[Akritis_1944]

The finish was one in a million but what about the dink over the opponent?! I never thought I'd see that level of finesse and skill from Maniatis.

[Akritis_1944]

Shame Barkas couldn't get his first cap, but I guess you need to earn it.

[Chris Tsamados]

I don't mind Maniatis, much rather have him than Tziolis!

[Akritis_1944]

It's good to get a win against an opponent that never treats friendly matches as a friendly but like Mark Bosnich said, Australia is not at the level of quality teams (yet).

 

He said that Greece isn't a Germany, France, Belgium, England or Brazil, but they are still better than Australia as Australia has only had 1 win against the elite teams and something like 6 losses and 1 draw.

 

That draw was against Germany in Germany. Four days later they then traveled to Yugoslavia to play Monkeydonija and drew 0-0. So that's the reality of the Socceroos. We should be beating this team and this group of players.

 

We need to have our best players fit and organised against Holland and Russia or we will be embarrassed but for team moral and psyche tonight was good.

[Nikitas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVehlw1uI2w

 

pause at 1:26 and you see the problem. 1 second later its 5 australians vs 1 or 2 greeks.

Edited June 7, 2016 by Nikitas

[Greekoz]

I honestly believe our players backed out a little in the 2nd half fearing injury, vellios wanted to smash one of the Aussie defenders, one of the commentators said at half time that if if was a serious match Australia may have received a few red cards, don't get me wrong we commited lots of fouls as well but they were actually smashing our players. The last 10-15 minutes were a hell of a lot more comfortable then I expected. I'm really glad we won this game because the pedigree of our players is just so much higher then the aussies, we put them in their place, if we just had that one extra creative outlet like fourtounis to pick out the right pass we could have had a huge win.

[Nikitas]

Typical zonal marking. You miss the first header (I believe it was Toro), you F***ed.

correct , the freedom that the australians enjoyed in some corners this match you find that back in amature level. skibbe and the ethniki must work very hard on the set pieces. it will be vital for the wc qualifiers.

[georgelaz]

Mantalos is quality. Just as I said we just need a quality CAM in there like Mantalos, Fortounis, Ninis, Fetfa and we have a chance to beat anyone really.

 

I wish we could've played our best 11ada so we could've smoked them 3-0.

Edited June 7, 2016 by georgelaz

[Chris Tsamados]

I'm glad Skibbe realised we needed to win this game and didn't make 5 subs at half time. Hopefully he starts doing this with all friendlies from now on. We need to start cementing a team not having a Sunday afternoon kick-about!

[georgelaz]

Samaris took a real beating..

 

 

man that sucks. people underestimate the damage that footballers endure. kicks are 5x more powerful than punches but it's easy to underestimate the impact. really proud to have Samaris on the ethiniki. Pure class and I feel very comfortable with him in the CDM role.

[Original Sydney]

All those bagging Mandalos can now realise what a talent he really is. Overall this was a way better game and way better team set out to get the job done. The way we set out was perfect, gave the Aussie's no time on the ball and pressed very hard in the front and middle 3rd. Our structure was brilliant.

 

Maniatis was very solid, Mandalos good, Bakasetas did good also but needed to find the ball more, Samaris was also solid, Sokrati was a leader at the back, all the players worked very hard yesterday and with this attitude and adding in Manolas, Fortounis and Mr Mykonos Mitroglou this team can do some damage.

 

Both goals were also quality.

[Greekoz]

Pretty horrible day to be a Greek in Melbourne, we are getting hit pretty hard today, front page of herald sun, radio, you name it. Never seen So many racist online comments in my life. Our "hooligans" are dominating all media platforms in the city today, hate this place sometimes.

[Original Sydney]

Greekoz let them talk mate they'' do anything for a story, why didn't this media cover the flare lit at the AFL just recently? F*** em.

 

making out lighting flares is violence, soon enough they'll label it terrorism the spastics

[georgelaz]

The Australian commentators were class.

 

1) the mentioned the individual quality of our players and we need to solve the puzzle.

2) they mentioned that the culture in Greek soccer needs to be fixed because it's not the individual players as they succeed abroad at top clubs.

3) they pronounced the greek names properly (being around tons of Greeks helps)

4) they mentioned how greece should be winning games against Cyprus 9/10 times and Faroe Islands 10/10 times.

 

The english don't bother me much. they have a culture of banter. historically they are pretty much friends. just a peg down france.

[Original Sydney]

The commentators became bitter like the players when they went 2-0 down. F*** that Andy Harper needs a boot to the face....

[georgelaz]

yeah? would love to watch the full second game if it becomes available lol