Τρίτη 28 Φεβρουαρίου 2012
Πέμπτη 5 Μαΐου 2011
Greek Playoffs preview : part 2 : PAOK
Paok, who finished third in last year's regular season, managed to win last year's playoffs mini league and therefore participate in Champions League qualification rounds.
Paok was unlucky to be paired against Ajax, and even though they put a good fight, they found themselves eliminated. They managed to qualify for the group stage of Europa's League though, where they put some good perfomances. They finished in the second place of their group, proceeding to the next round, but then they failed to eliminate CSKA Moskva.
Paok approach their matches using a catious style. Their defence (with Contreras having a great season)is really strong and their duo in the centre of the pitch maybe the best one in the league: the Spanish Vitolo is a holding midfielder who just doesn't get tired and doesn't stop running, and Garcia is Paok's brain. He dictates the tempo and he is in charge of all the set-pieces. He is also very aggresive (he may have conceded a red card or two,non-surprisingly for an Uruguayan midfielder) which has made him a fans' favourite.
Paok's Vieirinha is arguably the best winger in the league. He's got great pace, dribling, and his typical move is to cut inside and attempt one of his trademark powerful shots.
Paok is very strong at home, however he often face a lot problems when travelling away, especially in Athens (Panathinaikos and AEK are from Athens).
Paok was unlucky to be paired against Ajax, and even though they put a good fight, they found themselves eliminated. They managed to qualify for the group stage of Europa's League though, where they put some good perfomances. They finished in the second place of their group, proceeding to the next round, but then they failed to eliminate CSKA Moskva.
Paok approach their matches using a catious style. Their defence (with Contreras having a great season)is really strong and their duo in the centre of the pitch maybe the best one in the league: the Spanish Vitolo is a holding midfielder who just doesn't get tired and doesn't stop running, and Garcia is Paok's brain. He dictates the tempo and he is in charge of all the set-pieces. He is also very aggresive (he may have conceded a red card or two,non-surprisingly for an Uruguayan midfielder) which has made him a fans' favourite.
Paok's Vieirinha is arguably the best winger in the league. He's got great pace, dribling, and his typical move is to cut inside and attempt one of his trademark powerful shots.
Paok is very strong at home, however he often face a lot problems when travelling away, especially in Athens (Panathinaikos and AEK are from Athens).
Τρίτη 3 Μαΐου 2011
Greek Playoffs Preview
Welcome to a blog that is going to be about European football (Greek league, Bundesliga, Premier Division, Primera, Serie A and european competitions mainly).
The Superleague (aka Greek League) is over, but playoffs for european qualification are just about to begin. In those playoffs, they will take part clubs that finished in the 2th-5th place in the Superleague table. Those are: Panathinaikos, Aek, Paok, Olympiakos Volou. Don't mix up Olympiakos Volou (newly-promoted side) with Olympiakos (finished 1th, champion, and participates often in Champions League).
In those playoffs, there will be a mini league of those 4 clubs, playing each other 2 times. Because of some "strange" rules which we don't have to mention here, the 4 clubs will not start from the same starting point. Panathinaikos will start with 3 points, AEK with 1, and Paok and Olympiakos Volou (which will be referred as Volos from now on) with no points. As a reminder, the club that will finish first in that mini-league will participate in next year's Champions League, and the other 3 will participate in Europa League.
Full table and schedule can be found here, in the great Soccerway site: http://www.soccerway.com/national/greece/super-league/2010-2011/champions-league-qualifiers-play-off/
The Greek League is not amongst the most populars or well-knowns in Europe, so I can only assume someone will only knows a couple of things about clubs that played recently in the champions league, like Panathinaikos and Olympiakos.
Let me introduce you to the 4 participants of those playoffs (which start on sunday)
Let's start with Panathinaikos, the arguably stronger team of the four:
Tactical Formation:
In the first match against Paok, there will be some changes though. Kante, Boumsong and Leto are suspended, and Spyropoulos will probably miss the game due to injury. So, we have to wait for the latest training reports to see what Mr Ferreira (Panathinaikos' coach) has in mind.
Thoughts about Panathinaikos:
Having won the double last season, expectations were really high for Panathinaikos this year. Especially as their rival, Olympiakos, was really dissapointing last season, with which was probably the worst squad the club had for years, and its chairman, Mr Kokkalis, didn't seem willing to spend a lot of money to reinforce the squad.
However, Mr Kokkalis sold the club to a young and ambitious businessman, Mr Marinakis. Mr Marinakis spent a lot of money to sign a lot of quality players, and most importantly, he brought back the Spanish manager who had won the last greek championship for them, Mr Valverde (ex manager of Espanyol and Villareal, amongst others).
Mr Valverde proved (again) that he is the best manager the greek football has seen for years, and he piloted Olympiakos to a comfortable league title.
That was facilitated by Panathinaikos' poor perfomances, which had as a result the sacking of Mr Noplias, the manager who won the double for Panathinaikos last season. Mr Ferreira (ex Porto manager) was then hired, but he has yet to impress the fans or the board.
It didn't come as a surprise that the Portuguese manager chose a 4-3-3 formation for Panathinaikos.
Tzorvas, who impressed at the world cup in the game against Argentina, was the goalkeeper, with Spyropoulos as the left back (a full back who is better at his attacking duties than his defensive ones) and Vyntra as the right back (the opposite of Spyropoulos, good in defending, poor in attacking).Boumsong and Kante are the centre back.
The ex-Arsenal star, Gilberto Silva is the holding midfielder, with Katsouranis as a box-to-box midfielder. The other centre midfielder is either the "tetraquerista" 20 years-old Ninis (who single-handedly eliminated Roma last year, gaining a penalty, scoring a wonderful goal and creating the third goal) or the experienced deep-lying playmaker Karagounis.
The ex-Liverpool Argentinian winger Leto is playing as a left winger. The French ex-Lyon player Govou was signed as a right winger, but he is hugely dissapointing throughout the season, so we can expect Christodoulopoulos to feature there (or Ninis).
Cisse is the target man, who has 2 incredible seasons with Panathinaikos, having scored 43 goals in 55 games!
A look at the other 3 teams will soon follow, and a preview of each match will also appear.
Any comments are more that welcome.
twitter account: greekfloyd
The Superleague (aka Greek League) is over, but playoffs for european qualification are just about to begin. In those playoffs, they will take part clubs that finished in the 2th-5th place in the Superleague table. Those are: Panathinaikos, Aek, Paok, Olympiakos Volou. Don't mix up Olympiakos Volou (newly-promoted side) with Olympiakos (finished 1th, champion, and participates often in Champions League).
In those playoffs, there will be a mini league of those 4 clubs, playing each other 2 times. Because of some "strange" rules which we don't have to mention here, the 4 clubs will not start from the same starting point. Panathinaikos will start with 3 points, AEK with 1, and Paok and Olympiakos Volou (which will be referred as Volos from now on) with no points. As a reminder, the club that will finish first in that mini-league will participate in next year's Champions League, and the other 3 will participate in Europa League.
Full table and schedule can be found here, in the great Soccerway site: http://www.soccerway.com/national/greece/super-league/2010-2011/champions-league-qualifiers-play-off/
The Greek League is not amongst the most populars or well-knowns in Europe, so I can only assume someone will only knows a couple of things about clubs that played recently in the champions league, like Panathinaikos and Olympiakos.
Let me introduce you to the 4 participants of those playoffs (which start on sunday)
Let's start with Panathinaikos, the arguably stronger team of the four:
Tactical Formation:
In the first match against Paok, there will be some changes though. Kante, Boumsong and Leto are suspended, and Spyropoulos will probably miss the game due to injury. So, we have to wait for the latest training reports to see what Mr Ferreira (Panathinaikos' coach) has in mind.
Thoughts about Panathinaikos:
Having won the double last season, expectations were really high for Panathinaikos this year. Especially as their rival, Olympiakos, was really dissapointing last season, with which was probably the worst squad the club had for years, and its chairman, Mr Kokkalis, didn't seem willing to spend a lot of money to reinforce the squad.
However, Mr Kokkalis sold the club to a young and ambitious businessman, Mr Marinakis. Mr Marinakis spent a lot of money to sign a lot of quality players, and most importantly, he brought back the Spanish manager who had won the last greek championship for them, Mr Valverde (ex manager of Espanyol and Villareal, amongst others).
Mr Valverde proved (again) that he is the best manager the greek football has seen for years, and he piloted Olympiakos to a comfortable league title.
That was facilitated by Panathinaikos' poor perfomances, which had as a result the sacking of Mr Noplias, the manager who won the double for Panathinaikos last season. Mr Ferreira (ex Porto manager) was then hired, but he has yet to impress the fans or the board.
It didn't come as a surprise that the Portuguese manager chose a 4-3-3 formation for Panathinaikos.
Tzorvas, who impressed at the world cup in the game against Argentina, was the goalkeeper, with Spyropoulos as the left back (a full back who is better at his attacking duties than his defensive ones) and Vyntra as the right back (the opposite of Spyropoulos, good in defending, poor in attacking).Boumsong and Kante are the centre back.
The ex-Arsenal star, Gilberto Silva is the holding midfielder, with Katsouranis as a box-to-box midfielder. The other centre midfielder is either the "tetraquerista" 20 years-old Ninis (who single-handedly eliminated Roma last year, gaining a penalty, scoring a wonderful goal and creating the third goal) or the experienced deep-lying playmaker Karagounis.
The ex-Liverpool Argentinian winger Leto is playing as a left winger. The French ex-Lyon player Govou was signed as a right winger, but he is hugely dissapointing throughout the season, so we can expect Christodoulopoulos to feature there (or Ninis).
Cisse is the target man, who has 2 incredible seasons with Panathinaikos, having scored 43 goals in 55 games!
A look at the other 3 teams will soon follow, and a preview of each match will also appear.
Any comments are more that welcome.
twitter account: greekfloyd
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