Hellas futebol

[Faliro]

That absolute shithole of a stadium Benfica had to play in, the Toumba, is to be demolished and rebuilt. Today the spatial plan was approved. Next, PAOK have to present plans of the actual stadium and they will pass without problem most likely.

https://www.sportime.gr/paok/paok-nea-toumpa-egkrithike-to-idiko-choriko-schedio/

In other news it seems Oly, PAO, AEK, PAOK, Aris and Atromitos will submit B teams for the first time. They will enter the second division.

B teams are good for young players development. For some odd reason Portugal used to have them 20 or so years ago but then got rid of them for about a decade until it brought them back around 2012.

How's Greece working in the development of young players lately? Any promising youngsters.

Olympiacos has a fair few coming through and I believe they will all be on full display in the B team this season. The stand outs are players like the 16 year old Kalogeropoulos (CB) who played a few games for the first team and was superb, Tselios and Liatsos - who is a 10 and highly rated. Martins like Kalogeropoulos a lot. He likes another player too.. who may be the next big thing.. https://www.sportime.gr/olimpiakos/olimpiakos-to-epomeno-protzekt-tis-akadimias/.. Renos Kasemi.


Besides Olympiacos, PAO and PAOK turn out some good players. One is Tsolis of PAOK who I am sure you know of already.  However, until the B teams are up and running this coming season, I am not convinced a Greek born Felix would have made it..

[Faliro]

The Super League 2 this coming season:



Finally a decent second league that geographically and support wise describes the whole country properly - Kavala, Kalamata, AEL, Doxa, Panaxaiki, Ergotelis, Xanthi, Trikala, Veria - probably the strongest second division I can remember. Plus all the B teams... This league will actually be watchable - especially as vaccinated fans will most probably be allowed back at games.

AEK's B team stadium will be at their Spata training facility, they are finishing it now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRtsW8E4wkg

[Festivus]

[Faliro]

     

[Festivus]

     

On twitter I follow several portuguese people. Not even the ones who live or lived in the UK were rooting for England yesterday.

[Faliro]

     

On twitter I follow several portuguese people. Not even the ones who live or lived in the UK were rooting for England yesterday.

Man.. I actually wanted England to win this but Southgate is such a natural idiot. The team is so political.. plus all 3 of his subs - subbed on just to take pens-missed their pens.. including a 19 year old Saka who had no business taking one..

[Festivus]

     

On twitter I follow several portuguese people. Not even the ones who live or lived in the UK were rooting for England yesterday.

Man.. I actually wanted England to win this but Southgate is such a natural idiot. The team is so political.. plus all 3 of his subs - subbed on just to take pens-missed their pens.. including a 19 year old Saka who had no business taking one..

Yeah basically what me and most people said. He sabotaged the team with those subs and the PK assignments.

Dunno about political, though. Why did he get the job, anyway?

England were lucky they got on the easier side and knocked-out a past its prime German team. Also, they played all of their games at home except for one.

This was Southgate's biggest test and he failed.

I've never been a big fan of England's NT. And English football fans on social media don't endear their team much either. Oh and the English media is ridiculously arrogant as are idiots like Rio Ferdinand and Liam Gallagher who claim England would beat whoever won the Spain vs. Italy bout and that English players don't dive because it's not part of their DNA.

[Faliro]

Yeah basically what me and most people said. He sabotaged the team with those subs and the PK assignments.

Dunno about political, though. Why did he get the job, anyway?

Southgate was hired because he is a "yes" man. He has zero tactical nous. Everything about him is platitudes and tokenism. He was more interested in making sure the players kneeled for BLM than working out 5 penalty takers vs Italy..

England were lucky they got on the easier side and knocked-out a past its prime German team. Also, they played all of their games at home except for one.

The draw was easy.. plus a weak Germany.. this was a once in a generation chance. The first half it was all an illusion. England playing neatly on the ground like they had done most the tournament and Italy not fouling too much.. it was a good look. By the second half it was like entering a time portal back to the clichéd 90s.. Italy cynically fouling 24/7, controlling possession and England reverting to the long ball and picking inappropriate penalty takers..

Gareth was cruel, stupid and possibly woke to throw Saka under the bus. He has never taken a professional pen in his life and is 19 . He was visibly frightened. Grealish said he wanted to take one but wasn't allowed.. All this nonsense Gareth spouts about protecting players.. just subterfuge.

This was Southgate's biggest test and he failed.

Agreed. The fact he even allowed it to get to pens is absurd. Pens clearly suited Italy. He should have made the team go for the win second half.

I've never been a big fan of England's NT. And English football fans on social media don't endear their team much either. Oh and the English media is ridiculously arrogant as are idiots like Rio Ferdinand and Liam Gallagher who claim England would beat whoever won the Spain vs. Italy bout and that English players don't dive because it's not part of their DNA.

England have a neurosis now.. since 66 so many chances.. the style is wrong imo.. the managers are crap.. the style of the prem in general is anarchic imo. I choose to watch Brazilian,  Greek or Spanish football instead. If you speak to normal England fans away from social media the vast majority are humble.

Interestingly, did you notice in the semi, an Italian player wrestling a Spanish player to the ground off the ball in the Italian box second half I believe during a set piece? I saw it in the corner of a  replay but it was never mentioned again and VAR were not interested.

[Calcio]

Nelson signed for PAOK on a free from AEK... welp

Faliro, could you breakdown the confirmed transfers of the other big 4 plus rumours?

[Faliro]

Nelson signed for PAOK on a free from AEK... welp

Faliro, could you breakdown the confirmed transfers of the other big 4 plus rumours?

Happily. 1 sec.

[Faliro]

Ok, so let's begin by discussing this transfer period specifically for PAOK, PAO and AEK. This transfer period for the 3 cannot be described as good or bad - but simply as an unmitigated disaster - particularly for AEK who we shall begin with.

So, AEK finished 30 points behind Olympiacos this season. Their owner - Tiger - states every year his team have the best players in Greece.  Even when he brought in Jiminez last minute to salvage a European spot - he did it by saying he is taking over the best team in Greece - thus stating - if you don't do well - it is down to you.. However after the 30 point difference and AEK clearly lacking decent players - Tiger stated mistakes were made and he will fix it.. whatever that means. The main issue is AEK are extremely tight despite their owner being worth over 4 billion euros.. The budget of the AEK squad is tiny.. 35 million Euros. Let's put that in context. They are a European club who can easily gather over 50k fans for a nothing European game. They have an owner worth over 4 billion euros and are about to have a state of the art new 30k stadium.. and yet their player budget is below Famalicao.. So - big words from Tiger - everyone expecting the cash to flow! Instead - a total disaster - as expressed by their own fans and neutrals.

AEK put Kone in charge of transfers - a former player and brat of Albanian origin. Why he was made the technical director? No idea.

At first they wanted Damien Da Silva of Rennes.. that was their big target. After a month of only trying to get him.. he said no and re-signed with Rennes. So - they built their entire transfer policy around trying to get Olivier Ntcham from Celtic. Why Celtic? They had done business previously with them unloading useless Barkas to them. Also - despite doing business with Celtic - for some reason, they wished to fuck over Celtic (maybe because they may not have paid for Barkas yet?) How could they fuck over Celtic? By getting Ntcham to walk out on his contract so AEK could get him for free.  That was genuinely the AEK strategy.. They spent a month trying to do this. In the end, Celtic just told AEK to enter into proper negotiations or get lost. AEK chose the later option.. AEK fans were bewildered - especially as AEK signed a washed up Tzavellas to be their new CB for €400k... but would not even offer 1 million for Ntcham. Because of the signing of Tzavellas - their other main target at CB, Goutas (a far better CB) was told to he was not going to be signed by AEK despite them courting him for months! As well as Tzavellas they signed the talented Mitoglou (CB) from Volos - PAOK probably wanted him, but for some reason didn't find an agreement with Beos - owner of Volos. They also got the LB Parras from Panaitolikos.. on a free.. They also signed Le Tallec on a free. Krstičić left. He was so desperate to leave - he paid out the rest of his contract apparently. He then said his spell at AEK destroyed his love of football.  Chygrynskyi was asked to leave I believe.. and did. Oliveira went to PAOK on a free transfer.. Vasilantonopoulos a descent RB also left on a free. And that is it! They are still stuck with tragic players like Svarnas, Hnid (that I am sure they want to get rid of but can't), Nedelcearu (ditto) etc etc. All in all a disaster of a transfer period. Add to this they made offers on a few players who immediately said no. Word has clearly spread what it is like to be employed by AEK.

So that brings to PAOK - back with the fan favorite Lucescu as coach.. who they have been staging a bizarre love-in with the last month. ''Oh I missed you.. I missed you more.. mwah mwah,...'' He says he missed them and he is home... the media says the players love him and there is a new positivity etc etc.. However as far as transfers have gone - it has not been good. The most interesting has perhaps been Lucas Taylor (RB). Says it all really.. They got the highly rated Tzimas from Asteras. And that is it! They have double the budget of AEK - around 60 million, so once again I suspect it will be us vs them for the SL. Interestingly, their owner Savvidis, has not been back to Greece in ages - perhaps over a year? He keeps saying it will return to sort things out.. but never does.. They are drifting around. I believe they tried to get Gary Rodrigues back but it didn't work out. Maybe when Savvidis has the bravery to return to Greece they may buy some players.. Maybe they waiting to see if they qualify for europe..

PAO is the funniest. Their new coach Jovanović has said no to almost every player offered to PAO. This is funny because many of the players being offered to PAO are the usual shit teams like AEK pick up.. the Tzavellas types.. So because of his insistence on not accepting crap, PAO have got very little.. They signed the excellent LB Kotsiras from Asteras. That was a good one.. and that is it! Even their decent forward Perea who had a great season at Volos they sold this week to PAS.. All in all another disaster..

I can sum up all 3 by saying disorganized and players either didn't want to sign for them or the players they were offered were subpar. But it's fine. When they lose the SL they can just sit back on their chairs with the other 2 and say they lost because the league is fixed..

Other more normal teams have been doing better. Ionikos clearly don't want to be demoted ever again now they are back in the SL and have brought in an entire new team on free transfers, highlights include former Oly player Romao, Bueno and Delgado.





Aris are in trouble. They have been deducted 6 points from the start of next season for not paying off a former player. All they have to show this transfer period is Denis - the fairly old keeper and the winger Hajrovic.. Karapidis is dragging his feet on the new stadium and that is damaging the club. He is also suffering undoing the mistakes of past presidents - wages that were never paid ect..

Volos did their typical thing. All free transfers but all fairly decent. Also a new manager: Guillermo Abascal.



OFI Crete apologised to their fans for being in a relegation battle last season. They are trying to make amends by signing striker Mike Van Duinen from Zwolle and CB Pasalidis from Asteras. They also managed to keep their better players on the roster.

What most the teams have done is promote under 21 players to the first teams instead of signing players. As of next year PAO, PAOK, AEK and Oly will have B teams in the second league that wont be able to demoted for 3 years. I suspect we will see some more signings from the bigger clubs soon.

[Faliro]

Savvidis finally returns today. I think it could even be two years he has not been in greece!

https://www.sportime.gr/paok/paok-stin-ellada-o-ivan-savvidis/

[Faliro]

Aek sign fan favourite Araujo.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lIOMkPU99qY

[JMMC_NORTENHO]

When start the league faliro ?

[Faliro]

When start the league faliro ?

I think 21st August.