Greece - Bosnia-Herzegovina (13 November 2016, Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus)

[kosaca]

14 minutes ago, Rockafeller Skank said:

 

Achievementwise in the last 12 years we are way beyond. Screw the euro we won. 

Euro 12 Quarters, WC 14 R16. We ll get back to what we used to be , might it be soon , might it take 10 years, we will. You re basing your facts on a 2 year screwup of our NT? Friendly reminder u didnt go to the Euro 16 either, so either it be finishing 3rd or 6th the outcome is still the same. There is nothing to disrepsect, so u can't really mean any disrespect.

As for yesterday's match. 

Referee favoring us? Give me a break, he was happy to even the players without needed to red card Papadopoulos. Kolasinac did many fouls to the winger and nothing was given, suddently our 60kg winger makes a foul on him and you concede, and it's referee pushing the home team. Pathetic way of thinking.

You were the best side? Possessionwise, ye. In a total of attempts ye, but I can't remember any better chance to score than Pjanic at 76. The rest are no clear chances, despite you willing for them to be. 
You had Ibisevic header from a corner?(Not sure if it was ibi but u get the point). We had Sokratis header on target from a corner.

You had a woodwork->back of the keeper-> goal.We had a woodwork->keeper-> out. 

We had a Mitroglou tet-a-tet at 43. Dzeko shot on Karnezis some minutes before getting sent off. I really don't remember anything else worthmentioning as a clear advantage. So saying : we should have won 3-0 because we had 3 good chances is equal to saying : we should have lost 3-0 because you had 3 good chances. But I dont expect you to say anything similar because simply: This is your team and you support it.

And yeah, every time bosnia has the ball and is going forward its danjerous. Pjanic Lulic Dzeko Ibisevic are all world class players. But so is our defensive work. So are our defenders. Do you really base your fact that you dominated the game because an offensive team played offensively, while a defensive team played defensively ? LIKE WOW N!GGA ARE YOU SMART OR WHAT? Come get your cookie. 

Another one: While getting 8 yellow cards in 7 different players (friendly reminder football is played 11vs11) I quite honestly can't understand all the "you play anti-bitchy-football" bullshiet you ve mentioned. 

Draw was deserved, your team has the ability to score goals but your defence is disasterous. This is exactly the reason we have a chance of grabbing 2nd spot, because if god sleeps, we can stop belgium.

Go to sleep Gopnik.

Are you quoting the correct person, mate? I've never said that the referee favoured anyone.

The throw-in before your goal was a foul throw, his leg was lifted. It should have been called and wasn't. I don't think much of the other incidents but the referee was overall very bad. I thought 2 of our yellow cards were ridiculous, esp Jajalo at the end. 

Many arguments here you make to points I've never said:

'anti football', 'referee favoring you'

[georgelaz]

I disagree highly that the ref was biased. if anything there should have 10+ minutes extra time at the end with 8 yellows on their end.

Bosnia is definitely not better than us. Yeah they play more attractive football but at the end of the day we're just as talented. Defense ain't pretty.

If we had Fetfa and Holebas on the wings, we could make them look stupid, but alas, Politics.

[Original Sydney]

Heard that Kyriakos may be facing 3 match ban, anyone else hear anything?

[georgelaz]

that's a blow. but it's a bigger handicap to them if dzeko gets the same penalty

[kosaca]

Don't think Dzeko will get 3 games, it's not such an offence. 

Papadopolous punched a player and touched the referee, those are usually 3+ games ban.

[Original Sydney]

Dzeko will only get a game, 2 yellows = 1 match only.

Kyriakos is F***ed what he did was stupid.

[Bananas]

6 hours ago, Dampyr said:

And I keep quoting this "aek66" user in every post, what the hell is this

Maybe it's the beginning of a bromance ?

If/when you next try to post, if you "hover" the mouse in the "box" that says Aek66 you should see like another little box, about half a centimetre that is in the top left hand corner.  If you click the little box and the hit the Delete key, it should get rid of it.

It's a bit hard to explain in words.  Just keep at it.

[Dampyr]

It actually works. Great. Spirit of Socrates is strong in you.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Dampyr

[georgelaz]

kpaps really showed his age when losing his intelligence. emotional intelligence tends to develop more as we get older. look at Mitroglou now and his punk days. (I do miss his redicolous celebrations at times though lol)

[Bananas]

3 hours ago, val said:

Dear god. Did you not watch the game? Our guys couldn't exchange a second pass. The game plan was find mitroglou.

When you have maniatis in the midfield with samaris and the opposition has pjanic, you don't have a leg to stand on.

Our defenders are not even that great. Manolas and sokratis are heavily overrated in these forums. But even if we had hummels and bonnuci, without proper midfielders that can retain the ball to relieve pressure, you are always going to struggle. 

The bosnian team is much , much better and they proved it. The result would've felt like a loss for them and rightly so.

I think a key difference between the teams is that of "potential".  On an imaginary good day for Bosnia, they "could" beat us 4-0.  They have the players to do it.  We on the other hand could maybe beat them 2-0 on our perfect day.  We'd probably still be outplayed but we'd get 1 goal from ... somewhere ... and then maybe exploit some space in the 2nd half to get a 2nd.

The return leg will be interesting.  Lots of time between now and then.  Injuries, match fitness, form will affect selections and strategy.  Or not, who knows what Skibbe is thinking.  That midfield duo of Maniatis and Samaris can't happen again.  I'd almost be inclined to play 3 in the middle and forego a number 10 right now.

Maybe with some luck their fans storm the pitch or do something crazy to give us the 3 points ?  Ha ha.

[georgelaz]

if you look at our record against them, it's us who beat them 4-0. They only beat us that 3-1 once and we still beat them in the group so you guys are giving them way more respect than they deserve.

[kosaca]

there's no point to look at this record. 2 of those wins came directly after our 4 year civil war.

since 2010 our record is 1-3-0. 

greece is a team that plays on a result, i dont remember the last time they beat anyone 4-0, not even gibraltar.

[KOLOSSOS13]

7 minutes ago, tantra129 said:

imagine if we fielded 11 players that deserved to start

We did. 

[georgelaz]

yeah greek players as a general temperament are pretty lazy but when you push the guys we get vicious.

eg) when we lost to faroe islands but because of the bad blood between turkey we would not let them win.

[KOLOSSOS13]

6 minutes ago, tantra129 said:

ok man .... sure we did ... whatever makes you feel better.... 

What would make me feel better, would be imagining that we all of a sudden would become a much better team if a couple of my most disliked players didn't play. Just like you do.

But I have my feet grounded on earth.

[Polikastano]

2 hours ago, kosaca said:

Are you quoting the correct person, mate? I've never said that the referee favoured anyone.

The throw-in before your goal was a foul throw, his leg was lifted. It should have been called and wasn't. I don't think much of the other incidents but the referee was overall very bad. I thought 2 of our yellow cards were ridiculous, esp Jajalo at the end. 

Many arguments here you make to points I've never said:

'anti football', 'referee favoring you'

Hi Kosaca, 

As a referee for 18 years (im not FIFA though lol) i can tell you that FIFA doesnt care for and has instructed refs not to bother with throw ins. Especially at the pro level , yes when we referee 10-15 years olds we call the foul throws.  Even when i do Men games we dont even bother  calling them, it just slows the game down.  And im telling you thats why it wasnt called in that situation , dont think that the refs 'missed' it.

As for the ref Eriksson , he is terrible , he was the same guy that thought Karagouni dived in 2012 against Russia in the box when even Collina after said it was a penalty.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Polikastano

[Andriotis]

52 minutes ago, kosaca said:

there's no point to look at this record. 2 of those wins came directly after our 4 year civil war.

since 2010 our record is 1-3-0. 

greece is a team that plays on a result, i dont remember the last time they beat anyone 4-0, not even gibraltar.

 2006.... 

[Andriotis]

Pedigree = prestige, past success etc

 

Its not even close between the 2 footballing nations. Greece blows Bosnia away. You want to talk present form, yes I think the teams are more equal currently. Bosnia has better attackers, we have better defenders. I think Bosnia has a better style of play. 

 

Anyway, on the game. Draw was a fair result. In fact we were a bit lucky. Both sides had a couple decent chances. As usual with anybody we play Bosnians dominated possession. We have no midfield and it has been killing us badly. Mitro was a disaster up front also, we need better from him. We need to find midfielders who can actually somewhat play the position. At this point who cares what their names are. Tzavellas scored a cracker and it saved our campaign so far but I still can't stand him. (Sorry) I don't have any faith Skibbe will get it all right. Btw, Dzeko is a dick face. Always has and always will be. Hate this player. 

 

As for the fans, I also hate s%$#! like this. There is no place for it in football or in the stadium. Stupid a few people can make a whole country look stupid. They should be ashamed and not allowed ever again. We also should not play our games in Athens in my opinion. Last but not least, wake up people the Serb brotherhood is a joke. They don't give a rats ass about us truthfully and we shouldn't about them. They want to be friends and be friendly, sure nothing wrong with that. But that's as  far as it should go and don't fool yourselves. 

 

 

[Bananas]

1 hour ago, ThrylosG7 said:

If Tsipras started - firstly he would have scored an own goal , he would have made sure no Bosnian player was ever offside and would never tackle an opposition player for fear of hurting their feelings, or making them feel upset.

Ha ha.

[Original Sydney]

2 hours ago, Andriotis said:

Pedigree = prestige, past success etc

 

Its not even close between the 2 footballing nations. Greece blows Bosnia away. You want to talk present form, yes I think the teams are more equal currently. Bosnia has better attackers, we have better defenders. I think Bosnia has a better style of play. 

 

Anyway, on the game. Draw was a fair result. In fact we were a bit lucky. Both sides had a couple decent chances. As usual with anybody we play Bosnians dominated possession. We have no midfield and it has been killing us badly. Mitro was a disaster up front also, we need better from him. We need to find midfielders who can actually somewhat play the position. At this point who cares what their names are. Tzavellas scored a cracker and it saved our campaign so far but I still can't stand him. (Sorry) I don't have any faith Skibbe will get it all right. Btw, Dzeko is a dick face. Always has and always will be. Hate this player. 

 

As for the fans, I also hate s%$#! like this. There is no place for it in football or in the stadium. Stupid a few people can make a whole country look stupid. They should be ashamed and not allowed ever again. We also should not play our games in Athens in my opinion. Last but not least, wake up people the Serb brotherhood is a joke. They don't give a rats ass about us truthfully and we shouldn't about them. They want to be friends and be friendly, sure nothing wrong with that. But that's as  far as it should go and don't fool yourselves. 

 

 

I agree with the things you say, but as for the NT not playing in Athens, where do they go play then?

[HellasLEAF]

4 hours ago, georgelaz said:

if you look at our record against them, it's us who beat them 4-0. They only beat us that 3-1 once and we still beat them in the group so you guys are giving them way more respect than they deserve.

What does that matter now.  Those were different teams and different times.  It's irrelevant.  

If you watched the game they were clearly the more polished team all around, and that was with us playing at home.  Will be more difficult there.  Still, we could have won the game, because we are hard to breakdown.  And can score unpredictably.  

But, there is definitely a quality missing in the midfield at the moment and it will be out undoing in the end, despite 90+ minute heroics.  

Skibbe needs to figure this out and hopefully a healthy Manolas next time.  

[georgelaz]

our midfield took a vacation. Samaris and Mantalos have been great players for us in the past and they had a bad night from what I saw. Pretty invisible.

Fortounis was great. Almost scored from that cracker. He's always good whenever he plays.

[georgelaz]

sokratis also saved us a probable goal on their part where he pitpocketed dzeko

he's a beast too mayn, even the best defenders make mistakes and he was making dangerous runs too.

sokratis gives 200% for the ethiniki.

[georgelaz]

also what's the attendance in Greece? I know this is spoken of but Olympiakos game 30k+ vs. Ethiniki 15k?

That's a joke right? Our NT is quite better than any Greek club. I think it might be an Athenian thing, cause when I was in Kalamata the bars were packed for ethniki games.

I got deja vu when someone referred to this

"The first thing he taught us was that the national team had to come first," says Fyssas. Greek football is fiercely partisan; so closely did players identify with Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and AEK, the country's three club giants, that forgetting tribal enmity and uniting behind the blue-and-white flag had always proved difficult. "Rehhagel insisted that everything else came after the national team."

In qualifying for 2004, the impact was impressive. Greece did not lose for 15 games. They won in Spain. Under Rehhagel's guidance, they strolled to a place in Portugal and along the way, they developed a formidable spirit.

"It was more like a family," says Fyssas. "It was not one of these national teams with 55 players. We had 20 or so who were always in the squad -- he would bring two or three more along to have a look at them -- and so we were very close. We would sacrifice everything for each other."

Edited November 15, 2016 by georgelaz

[Dampyr]

Some of both Bosnian and Greek media should be heavily criticized.

They find some facebook comments or forum posts and make articles based on that with panic headlines like from one popular Bosnian sport news site:"Greek threats: We will crush your entire country!", and I saw also some Greek articles based on angry comments on Edin Džeko's facebok page lmao.

And of course when someone get hurt they will not be blamed.