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Nations League - Game #5 - Greece V. Finland (Olympic Stadium, Athens) - November 15, 2018


Argy

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29 minutes ago, Argy said:

You are right, but leaving out Lazaros and Fetfa was a sin. He was left with no other attacking player than impotent Bakaseta to sub on in the last few minutes. Bakasetas is always guaranteed to suck. 

I don't want to stress on Fetfa, and people on these boards have made solid arguments against him being frail and having no finish, but I don't care, with 10 minutes left he could change the pace of the game 100x better than Bakasetas. 

Ofcourse he is 10x better than Bakasetas.

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I’m done with Mantalos he is garbage... Him and Bakasetas should not be on this team.. Pelkas has not been good either... We need Donis healthy because he would be our best option... I understand The coach wanted to get the win and see what he is working with and maybe more then going for the 2nd goal and exposing our back end maybe he thought the win would be a confidence booster going forward.. It’s the only reason why he wouldn’t push forward and go with 2 strikers imo...  The fact that he cut Tzioils and Tzavellas and said he is going to bring some players from the under 21 needs to be encouraging to all of us.. Yes the style of the NT will NEVER be pretty and we will always struggle to score goals but I do have faith in this coach that he will eventually make the right moves.. The game against estonia now that the match doesn’t mean anything is a good time for him to experiment with his line up.. I thought Koutris looked good today...

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10 minutes ago, J1078 said:

I’m done with Mantalos he is garbage... Him and Bakasetas should not be on this team.. Pelkas has not been good either... We need Donis healthy because he would be our best option... I understand The coach wanted to get the win and see what he is working with and maybe more then going for the 2nd goal and exposing our back end maybe he thought the win would be a confidence booster going forward.. It’s the only reason why he wouldn’t push forward and go with 2 strikers imo...  The fact that he cut Tzioils and Tzavellas and said he is going to bring some players from the under 21 needs to be encouraging to all of us.. Yes the style of the NT will NEVER be pretty and we will always struggle to score goals but I do have faith in this coach that he will eventually make the right moves.. The game against estonia now that the match doesn’t mean anything is a good time for him to experiment with his line up.. I thought Koutris looked good today...

Good points J1078 playing Bakasetas was the coach's only mistake but he came on for like 9 minutes. It's good that he started of with a win and a clean sheet, hopefully that can build some positive momentum for the Euro campaign. Going forward he shouldn't bother calling up mantalos he has been disappointing for the NT recently and going back to the last campaign were he missed a sitter to give us a win at Bosnia. My patience with Pelkas is wearing thin but if he goes with him I'm fine with it as long as he starts putting in better performances. I'm happy we don't have to see Tziolis & Tzavellas on the field anymore. 

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2 hours ago, Omonoia9 said:

I guess I'm just not as upset as you guys because I'd already given up on winning the group. This win represents progress. Vlachodimos kept a clean sheet in his debut, the lineup is already way different than Skibbe, things will only get better. 

He did not see a shot on goal, so he really wasn't tested much. 

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2 hours ago, Argy said:

Finland won the group because of a better head-to-head. Estonia game will be meaningless on Sunday. 

I disagree, Greece have to finish 2nd in the group to advance into the UEFA EURO 2020 qualifying playoffs. This is a meaningful match. 

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1 hour ago, J1078 said:

I’m done with Mantalos he is garbage... Him and Bakasetas should not be on this team.. Pelkas has not been good either... We need Donis healthy because he would be our best option... I understand The coach wanted to get the win and see what he is working with and maybe more then going for the 2nd goal and exposing our back end maybe he thought the win would be a confidence booster going forward.. It’s the only reason why he wouldn’t push forward and go with 2 strikers imo...  The fact that he cut Tzioils and Tzavellas and said he is going to bring some players from the under 21 needs to be encouraging to all of us.. Yes the style of the NT will NEVER be pretty and we will always struggle to score goals but I do have faith in this coach that he will eventually make the right moves.. The game against estonia now that the match doesn’t mean anything is a good time for him to experiment with his line up.. I thought Koutris looked good today...

Mantalos and Pelkas shouldn’t see game time. They should be on the bench going forward. Bakasetas should dropped out of the team completely.

You said something about how our style would will never be pretty and how we will always struggle to score goals. There are two solutions to these problems in my opinion:

1. Drop Mantalos and Pelkas to the bench and play Donis and Fetfatzidis on the wings. That’s if we stay with a 4-2-3-1.

2. Play 1 of Kourbelis or Zeca in midfield and play Galanopoulos or someone more attack minded there eg. Mantalos or Pelkas.

We need to stop playing players out of position and need players who are more talented to get the job done. 

We all know Mantalos and Pelkas play better central so why not put one of them as the 8? Why do we need to have two 6s playing behind Fortounis? Kourbelis and Zeca are not technicians and aren’t really accurate passes of the ball. That’s why we need a proper 8. 

This would result in more opportunities created. The finishing part of the game needs to worked by the players. It’s all about which player you put in which position and what type of player he is. 

 

Edited by Dean97
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@Dean97 until we get a solid Midfielder to emerge that can control the middle of the field and feed the ball we will always sttruggle to create offensively... Zeca has heart and hustles but he is not the guy to do that and either is Kourbelis...  I think Doinis will help when healthy on the wing.. I like Fetfa and think he has talent but he’s hardly getting any playing time so I don’t see him being called up anytime soon. Lazaros should be here 100% but his conditioning is horrible he gets gassed very easy... the only spots that should be secure is Manolas, Socratis, Fortounis,Mitro and Toro ( until he starts to get tired) Everyone else they need to experiment with... I would add Donis to the list but we haven’t seen enough yet... 

Edited by J1078
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@J1078 i agree. Bouzoukis seems like the midfielder you were explaining. He can pass has vision and has an incredible shot. He has something special and I hope Angele is keeping an eye on him. I wasn’t too high on Mitro this game. I hate it when he doesn’t sing the anthem with the rest of the team. He looks like he doesn’t care. Even Zeca sings it. Also his performance wasn’t that great. 

Zeca and Kourbelis are good for shutting down opponents and running. They can’t control the midfield so that’s why i suggested that we play someone who can pass and move forward with ball effectively instead of always passing backwards. Also Pelkas and Mantalos don’t play like wingers. You could see they were trying to always move in the middle to do things. 

A winger is supposed to make runs down the line and take players on and whip in crosses. Instead we saw them more central than outwide where they should be. They are not natural wingers like Lazaros, Fetfatzidis, Manthatis, Lamprou, Chatzigiovanis, Limnios, Donis and Gianniotas. Even Bouzoukis can play there but I prefer him as a CM. 

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4 hours ago, Molon Lave said:

I disagree, Greece have to finish 2nd in the group to advance into the UEFA EURO 2020 qualifying playoffs. This is a meaningful match. 

I concede that there is importance to finishing second, but you really didn't explain the context of your statement. Second place teams will be ranked and in line to replace a group winner for the playoffs, if said winner were to already qualify via the separate EURO qualification campaign. Which means, if Greece were to finish second place and they are the highest ranked second place team based on record, they'd be first in line to step in and have a shot at qualification if one of the 4 group winners had already qualified.

As it stands, Greece is the second ranked 2nd place team behind Bulgaria by goal differential, but every group looks like it will come down to the brink and things will likely look a lot different after this weekend.

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So this match confirmed there was no cloak & dagger secret to the squad. Mantalos & Pelkas were the wingers, no 3 5 2 with wingbacks. Confirmed it was a wrong move by Ange A to not pick wingers. On the upside, the players showed alot more heart during the match, if not straight away., later in the first half.  'Wing-in' 2 wingers today for the Estonia match as per desperation, to make amends for the oversight!

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Well he can't really call up anyone else for the Estonia match, so he has to play with what's on the table. The closest he can do is play 3 atb if Manolas is OK and play Koutris and Toro higher up the pitch. Don't see it happening. 

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6 minutes ago, Argy said:

Well he can't really call up anyone else for the Estonia match, so he has to play with what's on the table. The closest he can do is play 3 atb if Manolas is OK and play Koutris and Toro higher up the pitch. Don't see it happening. 

I know he cannot call anyone in, it was tong-in-cheek. He is too experienced to make what I call, 'this error', from the start. It is probably a brain-fart, and Ange is talented.

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Im glad we won, but just like I had said, no wingers and no speed down the sides and no guys making runs did this game in and prevented us from ever really being threatening.

You can't have fortounis, mantalos and pelkas all play together and not have guys making runs for them so they can distribute the ball. 

Kourbelis and zeca shouldn't be together cause neither of them can really make crisp passes to set up attacks. Hence why fortou and mitro were coming back to get the ball. 

Why oh why the f did he bring out bakashitas? Like for what purpose. Like these coaches need to watch fn game tape. I don't care how old lazaros is, bakasetas couldn't tie lazaros shoe lace for him. Laz can play cam, cf, lw and rw. How is a guy like that not used. 

Torosidis and koutris were great today, imagine they had wingers to make overlapping runs with them today. 

Koulouris and mitro should have been on together. If your gonna just cross it in the box, might as well have 2 guys for the fins to worry about. Would have created more space for mitro. 

There's a lot of potential here, hopefully this coach figures it out. 

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You know what ? Imma say it.

We win Estonia in a couple of days imma be happy.

There is gonna be no team in League C finishing 2nd with 12 points. Mark my words. 2  years ago Monaco made a splendid run in Ligue 1 finishing with 95 points. They were unstoppable. PSG lost the champion spot because they collected 87. Does the fact that Monaco είχε γ@μ@μ@νο άστρο that year diminish the fact that PSG is the best team? Nu-uh. So a literally above-expectations run from the Finns shouldn't diminish the fact that we produced as epected. I said before NL begins that 12 points are doable. Seems like I was pretty close. What could not be expected was Finns not losing points up until now, putting the pressure on us.

Losing to the Hunns away was acceptable. This circus yesterday couldn't get past the half. We should ve at leat drew them.

We learn from our mistakes.

Edited by Rockafeller Skank
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Lazaros should have started or be substituted in at half when we needed a goal. Mantalos,Pelkas and Zeca were mediocre we need them to be better. Torosides was our best player but at his age tats a problem.. Not having Donis doesn't help either. Mitro had no service so its hard to determine how he did as he needs service to play well hes not going to run 30 meters.... I dont accept goalie passing does nothing and just proves this team cannot play tet a tet football if there life depended on it.  No urgency for the goal and I am still yet to see the passion from this team coaches job to light that fire if its not there. 

Edited by jason
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The game was similar to other games we played. We had chances but what is clear is that Mantalos/Pelkas can not play on the wings.  They just do not get open.  I was impressed with Torosidis, after all these years, his crosses were pretty good. Koutris also did a good job.  Vlacho didn't have much to do but other than his one intervention when the Finish striker was clear on goal. What I likes about him is that as soon as he got the ball, he was ready to counter but no one was ready to get the ball to start going up the pitch.  He would turn right/left, no were to counter.  Also, at the end of the game, no sense of urgency, they were playing passes back to the keeper.  I must say, Sokratis is the epitome of a captain, he tried and hustled. You can tell he gives it his all.

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if We finish 2nd place with 12  points we still have a slim chance to qualify for the Nations league playoffs as long as one of the other 4 group winners qualify via the Euro campaign…  Lets hope we don't draw 2 power houses for the qualifiers or we are screwed...

Edited by J1078
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