Hellas futebol

[Trapattoni]

Fesja was hugely rated in Greece until he seemed to get injured 24/7. When he was fit he looked average. Maybe Olympiakos thought we were selling a broken player. Perhaps your staff/infrastructure is superior to Olympiakos's and you have managed to bring the player back to life.

Secondly - I truly believe Samaris is superior to Fesja. Maniatis is an inferior player and Machado - I do not rate at all playing centre mid. I think he would be more suited to playing in front of a midfield where Chori plays. However he is not as good as Chori. Ndinga imo is good enough.

Well, when a coach doesnt see the players full potencial and benches him without any worth reason (Jardim) i guess its quite understandable when the board thinks that a player is useless because they hardly got to see anything from him
Thats what happened with Fejsa (sadly for you guys), then we came along, bought him and when the time came, put him on action to prove everyone otherwise
Still, i guess sometimes you have to make decisions, it came out wrong, oh well, life goes on

[Faliro]

I was not keen on Jardim.

Olympiakos have destroyed many players this way. Better players than even Fesja was at the time. Young players who are outscoring - out assisting the senior players and yet get dropped to the bench for months just to see 5 minutes at the end of a cup game.

The best examples were Fetfatzidis (Genoa) and Kyriakos Papadopoulos (Schalke).

He was the youngest ever player to play in the Greek league at 15 years old. Papadopoulos showed from 17-18 - he was as good as our regular old first team CBs. He had a speacial type of talent I have not seen before at such a young age. Espanyol tried to sign him, but olympiakos convinced his father to let him stay at Oly.  He realised it himself at a young age of his superior skill and asked for more playing time. He got the usual Greek response..'patience.' When he left to Schalke, many Olympiakos fans said - he is arrogant and shit. I stated he was a superior player and we fucked up big time.

He left being a player that would be lucky to get minutes in cup games in Greece. Schalke - the same year they signed him - had him as a starter in their midfield for Champions League's games.. Magath could not believe he was still only 18... 

So the saying goes - 'Greeks eat their own children.'

[Trapattoni]

Yeah thats true, but sometimes you have to understand that certain players do not have routines to play in a certain style and sometimes take more then usual time to adapt to his position, ill give you the example of Matic and Fejsa, two players that in a way were unacostumed to the way of playing in that particular position took some time to perfect it, Matic took one year even, and Fejsa took some months having a unfortunate injury in the midle of the season, but as time passed they learned how to play and to become better players, so i guess the greeks are not so wrong about patience in this particular subject, what good can bring keeping a player that may even succed in other clubs if he doesnt want to on your own?
About Jardim? Well, the guy is an pain on the arse, he took a lesson of football when he was defeated here in Estadio da Luz with Sporting, you did well of getting rid of him

[Faliro]

Oh yea, jardim was disliked by the end.. fans booing him etc..

As for building players.. I am a very strong believer in exposing players to minutes on the pitch so that they can improve and adapt. We have had many players who showed glimpses of great talent, but they were not given any games - not even cup games.. so they stalled.

This is why in another thread I stated it is so important that Greece implements its B teams system from next year. So many good players are being wasted in Greece - the type of players who would be nurtured in Spain.

[Trapattoni]

You got a point ill give you for that, i can say the same thing about some portuguese players that could be so much more if there was anyone willing to give them a shot
Some players from our B team would have been a great adiction to our team especialy last year when we lacked some solutions for the atack, those kind of things happen here in Portugal aswell, a lot actually
Nelson Oliveira for example wasnt very well succeded yeat, why?
Because the club is hesitant on giving him minutes that he wants because he has Cardozo and Rodrigo in a better shape, still he insisted on being loaned out two times and he still fails to susceed, why?
Because hes reckless, impatient, and lacks conviction on to his club, but Benfica is no free from responsability, because as his origin club, the one he grew in, should insist on him staying and force him to explain him that his time would eventualy come
So yeah, sometimes its the players fault, other times is the clubs, in this case its both of them...

[Faliro]

In Greece, there is fanatical support and that irritates me. For example, if a player is overlooked by a coach like Jardim.. many olympiakos fans will assume Jardim is correct simply because he knows best and the fans are not qualified football coaches to make opinions.. Also most the media gives coaches free rides, its the players that usually get attacked.

Olympiakos used to give time to old crap burnt-out players rather than hungry and fast youth. We became famous for it.

If you look at Panathinaikos this year. They started from scratch. Put all their youth players in the team from the beginning. They lost lots and lots of games - were foten humiliated this season. However by the time they played us, they beat us 0-3 with these young guys who had been battle hardened. They have just built a young crop of players from nothing. AEK used to do the same. Only now at olympiakos are we trying to embrace younger players like Manolas (who is not even an Olympiakos product).

[Trapattoni]

Yeah thats harsh, here in Portugal people are a litle bit more rational and despite some hipocrisy there is more tendence to evaluate a coach for what he is rather for what people want him to be
That depends much of each culture i guess
Ah and yeah,Manolas seems a really good player, i think he would do great here at Benfica even for a long-tearm replacement for Garay

[Faliro]

I think I was asked when I first joined who the best player was in our team and I said Manolas. He has had a tough time at olympiakos - nothing to do with his skill or ability which is exceptional, simply where he came from.

He is the nephew of the famous AEK legend Stelios Manolas. When he was picked up by AEK, they encouraged him from a young age for greater things. Gave him start after start and he just grew. The problem began when AEK needed to sell him due to having no money. They had got him to sign a 3 year deal before hand and he stated to the press:

  "I am extremely happy that I am going to continue playing for the team of my heart and it is an honour to wear the AEK Jersey for the next three years with my childhood club. I applaud AEK president Stavros Adamidis who believes in me and declined great offers from European teams to keep me at the club despite the huge economical problems the club is suffering. My dream now is to become the team's captain and win the league just like my uncle Stelios Manolas, who achieved this when he joined AEK.

So when he signed for Olympiakos he became a persona non grata for AEK fans and Olympiakos fans a like. Stupid really. Will be amazed if he leaves Olympiakos for less than €10 million.

As for your fans in portugal, you seem the very cultured.

[Trapattoni]

Yeah changing to a rival team is always controvercial, no mather who is from.
I can give you a similar case to yours here in Portugal that happened in the 80s when Rui Águas who was the son of José Águas (still today considered a legend, you can see a famious photo were he holds our first Champions League cup) left Benfica for free to sign for Porto, it was quite controvercial over here, and even his own father who loved him more then anyone stoped talking to him because of his decision.
Two years after playing with Porto shirt he returned, but some fans from Benfica do not forgive him for what he did before still today
We are well cultured, but our problem is that people here do not have a standard opinion in here, because sometimes i feel like people change opinion and prespectives with no plausible reason, it happens most of times with our coach.
When we win, you can see many people come here and say that he is the best coach in the world, blahblahblah and all kinds of things to make him look like a god, when he has a bad match or looses, he is the worst.
This is the kind of hipocrisy that i do not understand in our own supporters, its not even a forum problem, but its from his own fans
In my prespective the man is a decent coach, has some good points and some bad, he is far from a Mourinho or Guardiola, and its not because we are ahead in the table i consider him the best, and i guarantee you that it wont be because of loosing the title he will be the worst.
In my honest opinion i believe his time is in a way done, and i do not have a short memory because i know he did a lot for the club and revotionalized our style of play, but the humiliations we suffered because of him were a lot too, so i would like to have a new president who is also a suporter of our club (ours is not), good structure, and a good young man to lead us into a new future witch i dont see it bright and shinning even if we win everything this year.

[Faliro]

From everything you are saying, Portugal seems like a more sanitised and controlled version of Greece. My father actually had a business in portugal when he was young but left during the revolution quite bitter. Said bizarre things like 'all the portugese do is cry to fado music and get depressed.'  I have no idea what happened to him down there, he rarely talked about it.

About players switching teams. If it is among the big 3 Athenian clubs, usually it ends with some sort of violence, fans throwing stiff etc.

Speaking of which Panathinaikos beat us 0-3 at home last month. their coach got a free drink...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrXwBjOXAE

[Trapattoni]

You are right yeah
About fado, i dont think people from our generation even hear about it, i personaly like other tipes of music more
Switching teams here causes lots of fury, but its more with Porto
When C.Rodriguez left us for Porto the guy was really contestated when he returned to Luz to play against us, lots of boohhing and insults to him by the whole stadium
He eventualy got along with that poor start with porto and made a decent first season, fortunate for us, he got karma coming to him when he got injured on his second season and after that well...He was destroyed and merely came from the bench to play, when he was realised no one even gave him a goodbye as it was even before his contract expiral

[pcssousa]

Don't mind Trap. Even youngsters listen to fado.

[Schweisen Tiger]

The average level of greek football is way too low. That doesn't mean that even now and then, Olympiakos can't make a good european performance...but when you see low class portuguese players being bought by PAO, AEK, PAOK and Olympiakos (now less than a couple of years ago), the four biggest and most representative clubs of greek football, you know that something is missing there.

Regarding greek players, it seems to be missing some top quality on atacking players. I can't point 10 attacking greek players, that would be undisputed choices in Benfica or Porto. That quality ended over at least, 6/7 years ago, when that great generation with Tsartas, Karagounis, Giannakoupolos crossed their 30's. I think that Rehaggel was important in giving you a thing that not even in 1000 years you'll be winning again, but his poor atacking football legacy (continued by Santos) will have repercussions for a period of time way too long. But hey...in the end you'll still have a European Championship on you CV.

[Faliro]

Agree completely, will be amazed if we ever produce another Tsartas.

The league is a joke really. The only hope is Larissa and AEK return.. and of course Aris who are about to get relegated..

[Trapattoni]

Don't mind Trap. Even youngsters listen to fado.

I only used to listen one music, nothing much