FIFA World Ranking

[J1078]

If we somehow beat Bosnia or Belgium we should make a significant jump. Beating Cyprus,Estonia and Gibraltor won't make us move any spots.

[ausgreek]

C'mon Hellas, lets keep winning to get us up the rankings. Even Australia are above now, fifa ranking at 45. Who would of thought!

[NikosDiav]

Guys the game with Gibraltar didn't count at the calculation,like every other match,friendly or not with teams below #200.And actually Gibraltar was not even included at these rankings before the Hellas game.Those 4 spots were earned with the Netherlands away win.

[Rockafeller Skank]

I guess beating Estonia and Cyprus could get us in the top 40. And then the struggle happens.

[ausgreek]

The bigger the occasion the better we go Skanka!!

[Argy]

Beating Holland in a friendly is like beating Estonia in a WC qualifier, points-wise. That is why we barely moved up. 

Hope we can get some wins lined-up, because some of these teams ahead of us in the rankings are embarassing, including Albania. 

Edited September 19, 2016 by Argy

[ausgreek]

I can cop Tunisia and Albania but Australia!! It's like you Ellas taking the car away from me instead of the missus!! Why re??

[Rockafeller Skank]

9 minutes ago, ProudHellene said:

No one should be surprised at our rankings after having lost to Faroe twice. An embarrassment that can't simply be stuffed away. 

Will take a while for this team to recoup its former spots in rankings, not to mention the trust of Ethniki supporters. 

Agreed. It will take time to see the stadium full like we had it vs Romania 2 years ago.

[georgelaz]

i'm very positive about this team. I think we will make it to the world cup and go very deep as well. perhaps top 8.

we have really good players for every position, as long as we stay injury free we can do this.

I think karelis and mitroglou should play together up top. they provide different things as strikers.

 

 

[Nikod]

Let's see if we can shut our Gibraltar in the return match before talking about WX quarterfinals lol

[J1078]

17 hours ago, georgelaz said:

i'm very positive about this team. I think we will make it to the world cup and go very deep as well. perhaps top 8.

we have really good players for every position, as long as we stay injury free we can do this.

I think karelis and mitroglou should play together up top. they provide different things as strikers.

 

 

The Netherlands win was positive but come on bro make the world cup? make the top 8 in the world cup? and you basing this on what?  the fact that we allowed Gibraltor to score on us or the fact that we ended up playing Gibraltor even in the second half and allowed them to have some glorious chances. lets not jump the gun I'm still very worried about this team beating Cyprus yet alone make the top 8 of the world cup when not even a year ago we lost to Luxembourg and the Faore islands. Lets relax and take a breath and take it one game at a time and see what happens in the next match which worries me.  

[georgelaz]

yeah at the same time I'm wary of even cyprus.

i'm saying we have the raw material to do it. most of our key players are in peak form.

[Rockafeller Skank]

Ι actually sorta agree with georgelaz. Our Forwards , Mitroglou, Mantalos Fortounis have reached a good time in their career and made a good step up, and havent became a nothing like our previous "ELLHNAS MESSI". Defense has always been sort of world class, but we conceded in Gibraltar. Can't make assumptions from that match though since they were all pressing too high and some midfield mistakes lead to 2 good highlights for the Gibraltar team.

 

We can't hit any lower in my opinion, so we can only see them improve. Im not aware if we can reach the WC but a play off spot would be quite lovely since we have the material and Bosnia has the chance to ruin it.

[ausgreek]

The Skibbe won't play Mantalos centrally as the no. 8, he will either have Maniatis with Petsos and Tziolara coming on later or Maniatis and Tziolara with Petsos coming on later.

Is Panagioti Kone about ready to grace us with his presence, as a box to box?

[georgelaz]

lol tziolara

[J1078]

^ In order for me to feel very positive I need to see this team come out and get 6 points in a dominate performance against Cyprus and Estonia and get a minimum of a draw with Bosnia only then will I feel as confident that this team turned the corner and has the potential to make the world cup. But anything less then 6 points in the next two games will make it very difficult to advance.

Edited September 23, 2016 by J1078

[HellasTO]

^Same for me.  This team has a lot to prove after that horrible euro qualifiers. We need at least 7 points in the next 3 games for me to feel confident about our world cup dreams.

[georgelaz]

I predict a 2-0 or a 2-1 done decisively vs. cyprus and

[J1078]

^Totally agree, I think a lot of confidence is coming from the the fact that we beat the Netherlands and Austraila which is fine but it's only 2 games, and to be honest I'm a little less confident after the Gibraltor game, yes we scored 4 but we tied the second with them, plus conceded a goal and give them 3-5 premium scoring chances.  Everyone is still talking about our world class defense but that is the most concerning for me as we have conceded goals in almost every game against the absolute worst teams, if our defense continues to play the way they are playing we won't qualify and  I think we will get picked apart by Belgium and Bosnia. Really the only thing that has really changed from last year is we are getting some better results but the chances against us are the exact same it hasn't improved at all. I hope these wins have build confidence in this team but our inability to shut opponents out which has been a trade mark for us for so long scares the s%$#! out of me.

[Rockafeller Skank]

21 hours ago, J1078 said:

^Totally agree, I think a lot of confidence is coming from the the fact that we beat the Netherlands and Austraila which is fine but it's only 2 games, and to be honest I'm a little less confident after the Gibraltor game, yes we scored 4 but we tied the second with them, plus conceded a goal and give them 3-5 premium scoring chances.  Everyone is still talking about our world class defense but that is the most concerning for me as we have conceded goals in almost every game against the absolute worst teams, if our defense continues to play the way they are playing we won't qualify and  I think we will get picked apart by Belgium and Bosnia. Really the only thing that has really changed from last year is we are getting some better results but the chances against us are the exact same it hasn't improved at all. I hope these wins have build confidence in this team but our inability to shut opponents out which has been a trade mark for us for so long scares the s%$#! out of me.

 

You weren't saying this about chances our team made against Finland. You weren't saying this about chances our team made against Hungary when we drew. You weren't saying this about the chances our team made against  Costa Rica and Faroe Islands.

We dominated all 5 games i previously mentioned. Winning Finland away while we dominated Faroe Islands twice and Hungary out would igve us extra 10 points. But we only talk about chances created when it's against us?? Even in our bad era we were dominating the other teams. We just didn't get results.

The game against Gibraltar can't be acriteria for our defence. The game against netherlands can. One single defensive mistake that lead to goal. Their rest shots were from afar.

You could see the team hunting goals against Gibraltar. You could see we were playing with 2-3 defensive players all just trying to pass the ball fast to the opposition to score more. The Gibraltar team had 2 chances in the whole game. We are not suited for such a game style, aka hunting goals so that's why the defence didn't look as dominant.

[georgelaz]

we have a lot of in form players = Mitroglou, Sokratis, Karnezis, Ninis, Karelis +

that's were my confidence is coming from

and on paper we're better than every team except Belgium in this group. I understand the compulsion to be cautious and not let it slide into arrogance, but 2nd place is ours to lose still.

[J1078]

6 hours ago, Rockafeller Skank said:

 

You weren't saying this about chances our team made against Finland. You weren't saying this about chances our team made against Hungary when we drew. You weren't saying this about the chances our team made against  Costa Rica and Faroe Islands.

We dominated all 5 games i previously mentioned. Winning Finland away while we dominated Faroe Islands twice and Hungary out would igve us extra 10 points. But we only talk about chances created when it's against us?? Even in our bad era we were dominating the other teams. We just didn't get results.

The game against Gibraltar can't be acriteria for our defence. The game against netherlands can. One single defensive mistake that lead to goal. Their rest shots were from afar.

You could see the team hunting goals against Gibraltar. You could see we were playing with 2-3 defensive players all just trying to pass the ball fast to the opposition to score more. The Gibraltar team had 2 chances in the whole game. We are not suited for such a game style, aka hunting goals so that's why the defence didn't look as dominant.

First off every team opens it up against Girbraltor and doesn't concede goals so that's no excuse, secondly from the first few games of the euro campaign I said our defence looks week and we are conceding easily, Have you not been watching from the start of the Euro until now? Can you honestly say our defence looks good? Do you not agree that we have been giving up goals in almost every game and even allowing the worst of teams to score on us? You do realize between Hungary,Finland,FI,NI Luxembourg, Iceland, Australia and Gibraltar we have conceded 15 GOALS in 8 games. That is a ridiculous amount of goals to give up against the caliber of teams on this list. If you think our defence isn't an issue and the goals against are justified then I have no clue what games you are watching.

[georgelaz]

yeah good point

and very strange since defense on paper is our strong suit. at least sokratis, manolas, kpaps.

I think we should play a traditional line, rather than pressing high.

yes sokratis and manolas are fast, but majority of good forwards are still faster. they're just fast in terms of cb's.

Edited September 26, 2016 by georgelaz

[Nikitas]

we climbed 6 spots to #42.

http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/

[Argy]

Embarassingly low. We are under Australia, but at least we finally surpassed Albania. 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Argy