Wow - that is quite the coup! Best of luck to all of them as they start to play for Aris and prove they are worth the signing!
Another team just got relegated, Asteras Tripolis. One of their board members has been involved in match fixing, corruption etc. The guy involved in this is called Borovilos and is a ex referee. That makes someone wonder how many games he fixed as a ref. I guess this year will go on like this, teams keep getting relegated along the way.
Yeah maybe we should make Toja-Acosta rock star wig day like you guys did Tsiolis picked a 20-man squad for the game tomorrow. That means that 2 players will be dropped before the game. Garcia and Portilla are back in the squad which is great. The 4 new guys are also in. Iacob will also most likely make his debut tomorrow even though he is not 100% ready.
Game against Xanthi starts in 30 min. [LINEUP-4-4-2]Castillo, Iacob, Umbides, Kapetanos, Faty, Neto, Michel, Lazaridis, Dickoh, Papazach, Vellidis[/LINEUP-4-4-2] Bench: Jacupovic, Papasterianos, Toja, Portilla, Sankare, Prittas, Acosta Very offensive lineup. Link: http://greekchannelslive.blogspot.com/2011/05/sport-tv-1.html
Hi! I saw the last 5 minutes. Were the fans booing and whistling after the final whistle? Just curious. I have not seen any of the games before. It sounded like the crowd was not happy with the result.
Yep that's correct. 0-0 at home against Xanthi is not good enough. 2 points in 3 games. We have high goals this season, at least top 3. But with 2 points in 3 games against theoretically easy teams it will be hard. Nery Castillo got a red card in the end from that joke of a referee. He saw 2 yellow cards on him that no one else saw. 2nd game in a row we get a red card. We should have won this game though, we had the chances but couldn't score. Tsiolis has a lot of things to work on. This is not good enough. We have a good squad but can't get the results. Hopefully we can get a fresh start and turn this around after the International break.
My opinion about our players performances today: Vellidis: Made a couple great saves. He also took care of everything in the air even though he is a very short keeper. Sifakis usually has problems with his exits. I think Vellidis will be in the NT soon together with Sifakis, he might even become better. Papazacharias: I've been doubting this player before but today he showed good signs. Cleaned up some situations and played well both as a RB and CB. Dickoh (out 45'): He did ok, not that much to do since Xanthi didn't attack that much. Our midfield didn't help very much though so Xanthi got through sometimes and Dickoh was left alone with the other defenders. Lazaridis: Same as Dickoh. He also had some chances to score but finished bad. Michel (out 45'): Missed many passes and had some problems with Xanthis counters. He didn't help much offensively either. Was subbed out at half already. Neto: Not one of his better performances. He didn't get very involved in the offense as much as usual. Played as a RM in the first half and then RB in the second. I think he should play RB and Umbides in front of him. He is more effective as a RB. Faty: I don't even think I need to mention it anymore that Faty is our only midfielder that helps tracking back. Unfortunately he gets to alone sometimes. Tsiolis is trying to play very offensively which makes Faty very alone on our half. In the end when Iacob was out he played as striker. He had a couple of chances to score but his finished bad. Kapetanos: Not a good game by Kapetanos. He had a great chance to score in the 3rd minute but his finish was completely off. Then he was quite lost during the rest of the first half. He played as a LB the second half. I don't understand why but I guess Tsiolis wanted his crosses. Umbides: He has just been with the team for some days but he played quite well anyway. Switched positions all the time. Great player, one of the best in the league last season. He showed a bit of that today. Good crosses, he runs constantly and can take beat his guy easily. With the time he will get much better. Castillo: Disappointing performance. Nery was captain of the team today. I'm not disappointed because he got a red card, since that red card was absurd. None of the yellow cards that he got were correctly given to him. Nery is the highest paid player in the team and I expect him to prove that he is worth that money too. He had a couple of great dribbles in the first half but not much more than that. Iacob(out 69'): I like what I saw from him. Some great combinations with the other players. He kept the defenders busy and is very strong so he can play as a target player. Not in 100% shape though, I believe he will become valuable during the season. Toja (in 45'): Did Ok. Better than the previous games. Kept the ball well in offense. He has to choose the easy exit when having the ball outside our own penalty area though. Toja has to be on his top to keep his place in this team I think. Like he did last year in Europa League. Portilla (in 45'): He just came back from a injury which was pretty clear. Looked a bit slow and did not control the midfield like he use to. Acosta (in 69'): Did well. Helped tracking back and showed good technique. Delivered 1 or 2 good crosses from his left side too. And finally some words about our coach Tsiolis. He has a great squad to work with, many different kind of players. It's just don't work out that well though, because it's the end product that counts. He had a extra long pre-season to work on tactics and everything, but he still keeps experimenting all the time. Changing tactics like 3-4 times a game. I think it's hard to find stability like that. He also wants to play a very offensive minded type of game. So he leaves Faty very alone in the middle trying to cover for everyone else. In order to play offensively you have to control the game and in order to do that you have to control the midfield. Very hard to do that when the opponent easily comes in behind our midfield and defense. Well we have to keep going. Just 3 games played. We have a great squad and a good coach. It has to work out. With Sankare, Umbides, Acosta coming in it will become better. Then we also have Vranjes that also hasn't played yet. Also Nacho Garcia and a couple other guys that are coming back from injuries. I have to dedicate some final words to that referee too. What a joke he was. First giving us cards all the time for silly situations. Faty for normal tackle. Castillo got a yellow because the Xanthi team doctor pushed him. WTF! Then he got a second yellow for disturbing the goalkeeper, even though he was more than one meter outside the penalty area. ARIS is the only team in the league that gets those kind of cards. 2nd game in a row now that we get a red card.
Game on Sunday against Ergotelis away. We need a win to get back on track and not let the other teams increase the lead. After this weekends game we are playing paok at home! Unfortunately we are having many injuries at the moment. First Vranjes got injured when he started getting in shape so he will be out for about 15 days. Then Nacho Garcia got hurt again just some days before he was going to enter full training so he will be out for about 7 to 10 days. Now Cesarec got injured too and will be out for a month. Soltani will also be out for about 15 days. Iacob and Faty are struggling with a flu. Nery Castillo is also sligtly injured but he is suspended anyway. Sifakis is out for at least 6 months as well as we know. That's 8 first team players! Good that we have a huge squad though, otherwise we would hardly have players to put in. And one little favor guys, enter and like the page: http://www.fanatikoi.gr/ On facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Fanatikoi It's a Greek sport site were the fans write all the news and articles about their teams. I would really appreciate the support
Toja also out with a injury so he is not in the squad for the game tomorrow. Faty and Iacob are in though. I will post links tomorrow if anyone is interested in watching the game.
Last game against Ergotelis finished 1-1 I was too pissed to post after the game because we allowed them to score in the 93rd minute! We should have finished the game off so much earlier, at least 0-3 but instead we got punished in the last minute. We even had a chache to score after their goal but missed again. Sankare scored for us, in his debut. I saw some positives in this game even though we didn't win. All new players played really well, specially Sankare. He connected well with Dickoh. You can see the goals here: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4LadXu1VFk&feature=related"]6? ??. ????????? ???? 1-1 - YouTube[/ame] On Sunday we play paok!
Three players are back for the game against paok. Toja is back from injury, Castillo back from supension and Iacob from a flu. Iacob played a little bit last game though, but now he is ready to start.
Yeah all paok players said that this game against us is the most important game of the season for them But it's a small club compared to ARIS so I guess it's normal they feel like that.
1-1 against the dirty double headed chicken paok today. Once again we draw. 4 draws in 5 games this season. We should have won today, we scored early with Lazaridis and then paok equalized early in the 2nd half. Instead of killing the game off we let paok get in to the game. Well they mostly got in to the game with the help of the ref that gave them FK's all the time and he didn't give us a clearly. It was clear that he was on a mission, but I don't think anyone else expected something else. Tsiolis is hanging onto a thin line now. I think a win against aek next game is very decisive for his future at the club. If he doesn't win that one I guess we will starting looking for someone else.
Video from yesterday: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J5xEcNOCw&feature=player_embedded"]Aris Thessaloniki - paok 1-1 (2011/2012) ? Welcome to Hell - YouTube[/ame] Also look at this picture. If this is not a penalty I don't what is.
Game against aek tomorrow. We need the 3 points. Vranjes is in the squad for the first time, hopefully he will get some minutes. Toja is back in the squad and maybe he will start instead of Kapetanos. Cezarec, Sifakis, Garcia, Soltani and Castillo are all out with injuries. Doxa Drama and Levadiakos are the 2 teams that got promoted and took the places of Kavala and Olympiakos Volou. So those two teams have like 10 days to sign players if they want. Doxa are interested in about half our team. They want Garcia, Kouloucheris, Kaznaferis and some other young players on loan. Cezarec already said no to them. They also want to rent our stadium because the are re-building theirs.
Embarrassing loss against aek with 3-0. We had 2 shots off the post but other than that we were terrible once again. So Tsiolis GTFO!!! F*cking destroying this team. We have one of the best squads in the league and one of the best squads we ever had. We see nothing of that on the pitch though, instead we play like the one of the worst f*cking teams in the league. I seriously don't understand WTF that guy on our bench is doing. We've played like 25 friendlies and now 6 official games and in all games we had different lineups. Not only that he changes places on the players like every 5 minutes during the game! Of course we won't establish any plays of our own if the players don't wtf they are doing out there. When someone makes a good game he sits on the bench the next game and when someone plays sh*t he keeps playing. He also subs the ones that plays well during the game every game. It's like he is doing this sh*t on purpose, like he doesn't want us to win and play well. No fu*king logic whatsoever in anything that he is doing. I've been supporting him, with the hope that something will change but this is just getting worse for every week. Also after every week he says some dumb sh*t. If the board doesn't do anything they will have serious problems!
Of course there are already rumors about who might take over. Ex-coach Hoyos being rumored, he has a contract with Bolivar though. Laudrup was rumored to us last week, I don't think we can afford him. We will probably look for a Spanish or South American coach. Tomorrow the board will have a meeting with Tsiolis, let's see if they will fire him...
So now it's official that Tsiolis is no longer the coach of ARIS. I hope the board already found a new coach to take over soon.