@Andreas Geia sou file, Wraia, exoume parea twra! You're right, it isn't 2004 anymore. Karagounis and Katsouranis ran the Zidanes of the world off the pitch back then, but it's 10 years on now. That said, my feeling is that Karagounis and Katsouranis still have a place on the team as depth. These two may be going 38 and 35, respectively, but we can still get some value from them for 15-40 minutes a match or in the latter stages of tournament when other teams begin to tire and we can use the sort of inspiration we saw saw Katsouranis produced against Nigeria in 2010 or Karagounis against Russia in 2012. @PANDEMONEUM The best team won the group. The Bosnians deserve first place. As for us, we've drawn Romania. We should progress with another pair of uninspiring favorable results, although Romania are no pushovers. The battle down the left will be key with either Torje or Holebas likely proving the pivotal figures of the tie. Sokratis could have hands full with Marica, as well, although Mitroglou could yet have the final say.
yea, was very happy that we got Romania lots of people upset that Portugal got Sweden this could be Icelands 1st WC if they can beat Croatia tie 1-1 away and win 1-0 at home, and Greece goes to the WC ^ thats excitement ^
I figured we'd beat either one of them, embarrassing them in the process, and then get embarrassed ourselves at the World Cup.
1,700 tickets of 54,000 were sold to Greek fans for the match against Romania. By contrast, of 33,000 estimated tickets on sale for the first leg in Greece, 7,000 were allotted to Romanian fans. I get the sneaking feeling that Greece really is overrun by communists and traitors. In other news, the president of the Romanian FA insists that they will go to Greece and take the game to us (I'm assuming they'll do so in hopes of gaining the away goal advantage). The Romanians prefer a somewhat fearless and open style of play. Greece will undoubtedly take the opposite approach. It's not entirely difficult seeing Romania gaining some advantage past Greece. I suspect Holebas will have a torrid time against Torje, leaving Sokratis spread thin between covering for Holebas and marking the versatile Marica, who has been in impressive goalscoring form for Romania with five goals and three assists in eight qualifying matches (that's more goals and as many assists as any single Greek player in this qualifying campaign). Marica's best goal came against the Dutch when he raced through the heart of their defense to score a scintillating low drive from about 19 yards out. Romania went on to lose that match 1-4 at home, which should give us some encouragement given we've only conceded four goals in the whole of qualifying, never mind a single match! There are also questions in the air as to whether Mutu will play for Romania, surely their best known player and leading national all-time goalscorer, tied with Hagi. Romania also have a few players who ply their trades in Greece, most notably, and I'm sure you'll appreciate this @PANDEMONEUM, one of Asteras newer recruitments, defender Goian and of course PAOK's Lazar. Greece has at least one player in Romania, Kapetanos, and I wouldn't be surprised if Santos provides him a long awaited recall. With all that said, and far from being a pessimist myself, I think these two upcoming fixtures will be Mitroglou's chance to finally shine for Greece. Another hat-trick hero performance could well be in the cards.
Home to Romania in Athens 3-1, Mitroglou x2, Salpingidis (Mitroglou scores Greece's insurance goal) The crowd and the occasion lifted this team in a big way. Also, Romania didn't respect us enough and paid for it. MVP of the game was Salpingidis, who assisted on the first and scored the winner. He has such a great feel for the game. At times you think he's all over the pitch, when in reality it only seems that way because he understand the mechanics of the game so well. He simply knows where to be and what to do in order to make his presence count in a big way, even though he's not the most gifted of footballers. Aside from one hideous cross, he was superb and combined spectacularly with Torosidis. However, this looks to be a one off. I can't see Salpingidis possessing enough creativity to carry this kind of synchronicity with Torosidis in future matches. Now although Salpingidis is the MVP of this match thanks to his match winning goal, it's nevertheless Mitroglou whose the MVP of the playoffs, not least because the third goal placed the tie out of Romania's reach and all but assured our place in the finals. His first goal was inspirational, a reminder to his teammates that he's their insurance for a place at the finals. His second goal more or less made good on that insurance policy. I don't know if he can carry this form to the World Cup (I doubt it), but for the sake of this team we better hope so. The vitriol tactics are becoming a real issue. We play dirty and I'm at a lost to explain why we did it to teams like Slovakia and Romania, not exactly heavy hitters. I'm referring to tactics we saw like Siovas' cheap shot to Marica, Samaras' unsportsmanlike showmanship on set-pieces (which he had the audacity to do twice), and Mitroglou's 5th minute attempt to win a penalty... we deserve our legs broken in for that kind nonsense. If we keep it up referees will ignore genuine penalty claims (as we saw with Karagounis against Russia) and teams will start kicking out at our stars, so that Mitroglou, too, will end up getting Marica's Siovas-esque treatment out of retaliation. We shouldn't go the World Cup looking to emulate the Argentina team of 1990 nor the Netherlands and Portugal teams of 2010 and 2006. We should be better than that and we were, for the better part, in 2004. Besides, this is a recipe for suspensions and injuries.
i hate the nike greek jerseys nike, basically, made 1 jersey, and uses it for a bunch of countries at least with addidas, the greek jersey was specific for them, and was interesting it looked, as if we started off in a 4-3-3 i was happy, excited and really surprised but, after we got the lead, that changed to a 4-5-1 looking formation i felt like in 2004, Greece used tactical fouls, in order to become champions
http://espnfc.com/us/en/preview/382192/preview.html?soccernet=true&cc=5901 good info. 2 midfielders for Romania will b out their best defender, who did NOT play in the first match, still might miss or play with a face shield because of a broken nose do NOT concede a goal, in the first 25 minutes that will be very important Romania will play with 2 Forwards it is also very important, to close down the space, to stop any kind of crosses id like to see Greece counter attack with purpose, instead of just trying to stall the game
We have a moody bunch. Be it Karagounis' insubordinance against South Korea when things weren't going right, Holebas' and Kyriakos' lack of anger management, Mitroglou's swings of confidence (where in some games he can't do anything but score and yet in other games he can't even buy a goal), and Santos' oscillating trust in our next generation. Hopefully the mood strikes us at the finals. We got a good draw today. A winnable group. That said, we stand to play either Germany or Portugal in the next round if we progress. It feels like Euro 2012 all over again.