World Cup Greek Football Thread

[Unstable]

If Greece cannot beat the second best team in Asia. Japan should walk over them.

Japan is a class team. Slowly making themselves into a future football powerhouse. Easily in the top 15 in the world.

 

[Crows_United_FC]

Worst thing about Greece/Italy doing well in these tournies is the bandwagoners that jump on board and riot as if the games mean more to them then their very own existence.

Yes the worst. I remember during Euro 2008 a bunch of Greek kids came from clubbing all night and just rocked up to the venue showing the game and acted like they followed the team all the way through qualifying but the reality is that they don't have a ******* idea about any of the players or even how Greece qualified for the tournament. I guess these day Greek kids just want to show how much of a 'fully sick Greek' they are. If you're truly proud to be Greek, you don't have to brag about it, since you know that you are proud. (in your heart).

 

[LFTWNG11]

Worst thing about Greece/Italy doing well in these tournies is the bandwagoners that jump on board and riot as if the games mean more to them then their very own existence.

As opposed to all the Aussies jumping on the England bandwagon, which I am assuming is perfectly fine in your book. There are band wagoners everywhere, in every sport. So what?

Could you provide an example of Greeks/Italians rioting in Australia during an international tournament??

 

[Crows_United_FC]

As opposed to all the Aussies jumping on the England bandwagon, which I am assuming is perfectly fine in your book. There are band wagoners everywhere, in every sport. So what?

Could you provide an example of Greeks/Italians rioting in Australia during an international tournament??

Agree. there are bandwagoners in every nationality.

 

[iluvparis]

I will be heavily jumping on to the German (aka Gotze) bandwagon once our rape in the group stage is complete.

 

[Prince St]

This is the most open group out of the lot, every nation has a big chance and they will all be thinking they're good enough to make that top 2.

It's popular opinion among fans that Greece's biggest problem is coach Fernando Santos. The national sides potential to play attractive football and field talented players is ignored. He opts to go for a safer approach, playing experienced international footballers who are quite frankly past it. However he is Greece's 2nd most successful manager (qualified for every tournament he's had available to him) and despite the unattractive style of football he gets results. He has announced this will be his last tournament managing Greece.

Santos' side plays a counter attacking 4-3-3, with a midfield 3 consisting of uncreative yet hardworking and disciplined holding midfielders. The rest of the positions are run as standard.

Strengths:
Defence - A very solid back line that runs deep. Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kyriakos Papadopoulos of Dortmund and Schalke line up at the heart of the defence, both extremely talented, one of the tournaments best defensive partnerships. A third centreback Kostas Manolas whom some might remember had Van Persie in his back pocket last week could also feature. (I'm actually of the opinion we should utilise the depth and play 3 at the back, won't happen)

Heart - As silly as it sounds Greece is a side that thrives under the underdog tag. We bring our best when our backs are up against the wall.


Weaknesses:
Midfield - It's not that the Greek midfield is incapable of playing creative, tika-taka football, the players are there.. on the bench. Santos' midfield more often than not features the likes of Maniatis, Tziolis, Katsouranis and Karagounis. Most of them are footballers with limited ability on the ball that are either experienced internationals or workhorses. Which Santos feels enforces his style of play.

Player to watch:
Giannis Fetfatzidis - one of the very few exciting footballers in our NT setup he's a wide midfielder (can also play in behind) who possesses pace, great skill, creativity and flair. He is enjoying his first season outside of Greece playing for Genoa in the Serie A, earning many plaudits. If Santos wakes up and 'Fetfa' as he's known, is in Greece's starting XI, despite there not being much of the lad at 5 ft 5 inch you won't miss him.

 

[Barry Zuckercorn]

This is the most open group out of the lot, every nation has a big chance and they will all be thinking they're good enough to make that top 2.

It's popular opinion among fans that Greece's biggest problem is coach Fernando Santos. The national sides potential to play attractive football and field talented players is ignored. He opts to go for a safer approach, playing experienced international footballers who are quite frankly past it. However he is Greece's 2nd most successful manager (qualified for every tournament he's had available to him) and despite the unattractive style of football he gets results. He has announced this will be his last tournament managing Greece.

Santos' side plays a counter attacking 4-3-3, with a midfield 3 consisting of uncreative yet hardworking and disciplined holding midfielders. The rest of the positions are run as standard.

Strengths:
Defence - A very solid back line that runs deep. Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kyriakos Papadopoulos of Dortmund and Schalke line up at the heart of the defence, both extremely talented, one of the tournaments best defensive partnerships. A third centreback Kostas Manolas whom some might remember had Van Persie in his back pocket last week could also feature. (I'm actually of the opinion we should utilise the depth and play 3 at the back, won't happen)

Heart - As silly as it sounds Greece is a side that thrives the underdog tag. We bring our best when our backs are up against the wall.


Weaknesses:
Midfield - It's not that the Greek midfield is incapable of being playing creative, tika-taka the players are there.. on the bench. Santos' midfield more often than not features the likes of Maniatis, Tziolis, Katsouranis and Karagounis. Most of them are footballers with limited ability on the ball that are either experienced internationals or workhorses. Which Santos feels enforces his style of play.

Player to watch:
Giannis Fetfatzidis - one of the very few exciting footballers in our NT setup he's a wide midfielder (can also play in behind) who possesses pace, great skill, creativity and flair. He is enjoying his first season outside of Greece playing for Genoa in the Serie A, earning many plaudits. If Santos wakes up and 'Fetfa' as he's known, is in Greece's starting XI, despite there not being much of the lad at 5 ft 5 inch you won't miss him.

Agreed on Fetfa, could be anything.

 

[Kompany]

I don't share the same optimism as the OP for Greece but come on, people calling Japan class???

Japan were the better team in both their games against Holland and Belgium a couple of months ago. Both those teams played Colombia as well that week and only going by those games, I would rate Japan higher than Colombia.

If anything CONCACAF really only has USA & Mexico who are deserving of an automatic spot. Asia has Japan, Sth Korea, Australia & Iran all of who deserve a world cup place.

Why do Mexico and Australia deserve a spot and Sweden and Ukraine don't? I'm glad Mexico and Australia are there, that's not the point, but the allocation of spots is clearly dodgy.

 

[Northalives]

Greece's Home and Away shirts for the 2014 World Cup:

I really like it. It's similar to Australia's shirt with the collar and all. I will be getting both the Australian Home and the Greek Home (White)

Where's the walking frames ?

 

[Zidane98]

Japan were the better team in both their games against Holland and Belgium a couple of months ago. Both those teams played Colombia as well that week and only going by those games, I would rate Japan higher than Colombia.



Why do Mexico and Australia deserve a spot and Sweden and Ukraine don't? I'm glad Mexico and Australia are there, that's not the point, but the allocation of spots is clearly dodgy.

Europe already has a majority at the World Cup. I think it is pretty reasonable to ensure the top 4 Asian and top 2 CONCACAF teams will always be at the World Cup.

 

[Kompany]

CONCACAF has 4 in Brazil. Like I said, I have nothing against those teams (I have little sympathy for most European sides) but it's unfair to fans of potentially stronger sides who couldn't qualify because they had to face considerably stronger nations than others. It's not hard to understand that from my perspective for example, Belgium getting drawn in a qualification group with Germany and being knocked out in the playoffs by France would be hard to take, is it?

 

[Zidane98]

CONCACAF has 4 in Brazil. Like I said, I have nothing against those teams (I have little sympathy for most European sides) but it's unfair to fans of potentially stronger sides who couldn't qualify because they had to face considerably stronger nations than others. It's not hard to understand that from my perspective for example, Belgium getting drawn in a qualification group with Germany and being knocked out in the playoffs by France would be hard to take, is it?

I get where you are coming from but the idea of a World Cup is exactly that - a "World" Cup. If we picked the best 32 nations we would have maybe 20 teams out of Europe, 8 South American teams, 3 African teams & Mexico. That wouldn't be a "World" cup so to speak. There needs to be a balance of countries from all regions of the world. Saying that I believe 4 for CONCACAF is too much. USA & Mexico are a given and perhaps one other but not 4.

 

[Crows_United_FC]

This is the most open group out of the lot, every nation has a big chance and they will all be thinking they're good enough to make that top 2.

It's popular opinion among fans that Greece's biggest problem is coach Fernando Santos. The national sides potential to play attractive football and field talented players is ignored. He opts to go for a safer approach, playing experienced international footballers who are quite frankly past it. However he is Greece's 2nd most successful manager (qualified for every tournament he's had available to him) and despite the unattractive style of football he gets results. He has announced this will be his last tournament managing Greece.

Santos' side plays a counter attacking 4-3-3, with a midfield 3 consisting of uncreative yet hardworking and disciplined holding midfielders. The rest of the positions are run as standard.

Strengths:
Defence - A very solid back line that runs deep. Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Kyriakos Papadopoulos of Dortmund and Schalke line up at the heart of the defence, both extremely talented, one of the tournaments best defensive partnerships. A third centreback Kostas Manolas whom some might remember had Van Persie in his back pocket last week could also feature. (I'm actually of the opinion we should utilise the depth and play 3 at the back, won't happen)

Heart - As silly as it sounds Greece is a side that thrives under the underdog tag. We bring our best when our backs are up against the wall.


Weaknesses:
Midfield - It's not that the Greek midfield is incapable of playing creative, tika-taka football, the players are there.. on the bench. Santos' midfield more often than not features the likes of Maniatis, Tziolis, Katsouranis and Karagounis. Most of them are footballers with limited ability on the ball that are either experienced internationals or workhorses. Which Santos feels enforces his style of play.

Player to watch:
Giannis Fetfatzidis - one of the very few exciting footballers in our NT setup he's a wide midfielder (can also play in behind) who possesses pace, great skill, creativity and flair. He is enjoying his first season outside of Greece playing for Genoa in the Serie A, earning many plaudits. If Santos wakes up and 'Fetfa' as he's known, is in Greece's starting XI, despite there not being much of the lad at 5 ft 5 inch you won't miss him.

Being Greece's 2nd greatest manager doesn't mean much considering the abysmal coaches we have had in the past. Otto is great but nothing beats Panagoulias's reaction at the 1994 world cup LOL:


Unfortunately it looks like K.Papadopoulos won't be at the WC. He still has issues with his knee. Shame.
Fetfa has been playing very well in Italy and IMO needs to start at the WC or at the very least be used as a sub. Mitro should be back this weekend which would be awesome because we need him to get a bit of match fitness before the WC.

 

[pinot]

Not to be under estimated during group stage. Little flair but they scrap and grind out results their WC qualifying results were good.

 

[Prince St]

Being Greece's 2nd greatest manager doesn't mean much considering the abysmal coaches we have had in the past. Otto is great but nothing beats Panagoulias's reaction at the 1994 world cup LOL:


Unfortunately it looks like K.Papadopoulos won't be at the WC. He still has issues with his knee. Shame.
Fetfa has been playing very well in Italy and IMO needs to start at the WC or at the very least be used as a sub. Mitro should be back this weekend which would be awesome because we need him to get a bit of match fitness before the WC.

Too young to remember the 94 World Cup but that clip is priceless. Yeah, Kyriakos Papadopoulos was slowly working his way back into Schalke's XI before he dislocated his shoulder last week. Should miss the World Cup, glad it's not his knee again though. Manolas is more than capable of filling in next to Sokratis. Good to see Fetfa doing well, Christodoulopoulos has also been in great form for Bologna in the past couple months. I hope you're right about Mitro and he's in Fulham's squad this week.

 

[Jesse Custer]

Worst thing about Greece/Italy doing well in these tournies is the bandwagoners that jump on board and riot as if the games mean more to them then their very own existence.

Don't worry about Greece doing well. It happens once in a hundred years !

 

[DalBoySanto]

Greece are rubbish Ivory Coast Colombia will be too strong for them will play out a draw with Japan...

 

[Barry Zuckercorn]

Greece are rubbish Ivory Coast Colombia will be too strong for them will play out a draw with Japan...

Lol

 

[DalBoySanto]

Barry whats funny about that? Ivory Coast and Colombia will run rings around Greece...or Barry have you forgotten that you qualified from the weakest group ever.

 

[pinot]

Greece knocked Romania out of world cup in round two. no need to be so biased.

 

[Crows_United_FC]

Too young to remember the 94 World Cup but that clip is priceless. Yeah, Kyriakos Papadopoulos was slowly working his way back into Schalke's XI before he dislocated his shoulder last week. Should miss the World Cup, glad it's not his knee again though. Manolas is more than capable of filling in next to Sokratis. Good to see Fetfa doing well, Christodoulopoulos has also been in great form for Bologna in the past couple months. I hope you're right about Mitro and he's in Fulham's squad this week.

Yeah same I was only 1 years old during the 94 WC, but found this clip and had to post it.

 

[Crows_United_FC]

Greece are rubbish Ivory Coast Colombia will be too strong for them will play out a draw with Japan...

LOL rubbish?? We are 10th in the World rankings! We have won a European Championship. Something that England has never done. Something that Germany hasn't done since 1996. We made the QF of the last European Championship. We have one of the most consistent Win-loss records over the last few years. If we get results then who cares if we play defensive football. I'd love to see us play attacking football (We are capable of it with the right player selection) but in the end...result > performance. I don't give a s**t if people think Greece is boring or not. Don't watch our games then if you don't like our game style.

 

[Saetta7]

Worst thing about Greece/Italy doing well in these tournies is the bandwagoners that jump on board and riot as if the games mean more to them then their very own existence.

Nowhere near as bad as the fanatics and green and gold army, and aussies in there rugby tops.

Greeks annoy me but at least they hold onto their heritage too

 

[DalBoySanto]

CrowsUnitedFC i did watch your qualifiers you were average in a woefull group Bosnia dominated the group that says it all while you guys sturggled to victories against woefull sides. i could name 10 nations that should rather be there then Greece

 

[ioppolo]

CrowsUnitedFC i did watch your qualifiers you were average in a woefull group Bosnia dominated the group that says it all while you guys sturggled to victories against woefull sides. i could name 10 nations that should rather be there then Greece

Such as?