Suggested Call Ups/Starting 11

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  • I think he's still recovering from that injury he sustained against Porto. Maybe they chose to let him recover some more. Or Benfica prefers an alternative to Samaris.

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    • I have to agree with Reapers line up. Galanopoulos and Androutsos provide more quality on the ball and speed than Samaris and Kourbelis. Quality and speed is what’s lacking in our midfield. I think Samaris is not even in the plans going forward. I do believe we start and building and constructing for the next qualifications. We are out of this one even though there is a very small chance we can make it. We’ve got Italy and Bosnia next. I see either 2 draws or 2 loses. If we are lucky a narrow win against Bosnia.

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      • Galanopoulos isn't a regular for AEK. Androutsos is a squad player at Atromitos who has only played 20 minutes this season. How can they play for Greece against Italy? Galanopoulos maybe, but only off the bench or as an alternative to an injured player. Androutsos can't play for Greece.

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        • Greece hinders the development of a lot of Greek players with talent. Galanopoulos is still on the bench but he has more quality and energy than Samaris. Androutsos isn’t favoured by Martins therefore has to sit the on the bench. Now is at Atromitos. He should be starting because he is very talented. We should have B sides instead of u 20s. We are not helping most young Greek players in their development. The best thing they can do is go to a country like Spain or Portugal to develop. It’s a big shame to have these type of players on the bench. They could be of good use for us in the NT. 2 DMs dosent work for us. I’m willing to at least try 2 pure CMs who can balance out the midfield. We don’t need so many DMs. Players who play at CM have more to offer as they can do a bit of everything while the DM is more defensive and doesn’t really have the ability in going forward for example Kourbelis and Samaris.

          I also believe Mantalos and Pelkas should convert themselves or be converted into CMs.

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          • Originally posted by Don Giovanni View Post
            Who do you think we should play against Italy?

            Edit: Or, what would you do different?
            For the Italy match I would go 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1

            _____________________Barkas

            Retsos______Sokratis____________Manolas____ _Koutris

            _______________Zeca__________Galanopoulos

            Fetfa_______________Mantalos_______________Donis

            _________________Koulouris


            Moving forward and refresh botton hit- Really feel we need to go back to 2 forwards/strikers in a 3-5-2

            ______________________Barkas

            __________Siovas________Sokratis___Manolas

            _______________Zeca______Galanopoulos

            Fetfa________________Mantalos____________Koutris

            _____________Donis
            _____________________Koulouris



            Mix and match, get in the mix: Pavlidis, Gianoulis, Natsos, Retsos, Limnios, Bouchlalakis, Kourbelis, Tsimikas, Masouras, Vasiliadis, Bouzoukis, Risvanis, Androutsos, Katranis, Kampetsis, Gianniotas, Mitroglou, Gentzoglou

            Options are there away from the crap we have seen for so long with the likes of Samaris, Bakasetas, Stafylidis, etc...



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            • Bakasetas, to his credit, is playing well in Turkey. I don't think that in itself warrants a call-up, but it's more than I can say of Gianniotas.

              Stafylidis plays in Germany and has past experience playing for Greece. I don't understand why he needs to be given the boot.

              Samaris plays for the biggest club relative to the rest of our midfielders. AEK, Atromitos, and Copenhagen don't compare to Benfica. There is no way we can rule him out.

              I don't see why Stafylidis can't remain an option for us if we play a five-man midfield, which is how he plays for Hoffenheim. I don't see why Samaris can't remain an option if Greece manages to find a decent CM who can handle possession of the ball and thus free up Samaris to do what he does best, which is how he plays for Benfica. It's not the players fault they are misused and forced to play in capacities they are ill-suited.

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              • Fair call on Satylidis but he has really not caught my eye of late. As for Samaris... yeah ok he plays for Benfica but. if he plays for the biggest club relative to the rest of the midfielders should he not be contributing, and I mean actual continubution, shouldnt it be more than constant turn overs that on many occasions have lead to goals from the opposition that have cost us dearly? If he plays for Benfica, shouldnt he be able to control midfield even "somewhat" and help solve the issues we have seen?

                In the last 5 years, Samaris has had ample opportunities to lead the midfield - where has it gotten us? I'll tell you where -

                Northern Ireland - 0-1 and 3-1 losses
                Faroe Islands - 2-1 loss
                Luxembourg - 1-0 loss
                Belarus - 1-0 loss
                Estonia - 0-0 and 0-1 loss
                Armenia - 3-2 loss
                Liechtenstein - 1-1 draw

                Do you feel any confidence when you see him in the line ups? I used to a little, I honestly get scared or worried when I see him in the line up now, he offers very little and is passing sux . All I hear is how, at Benfica he does not need to do much or pass much - pretty clear he cant do that anyway

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                • Good points Amorgo. With all due respect Don what has Samaris offered to the team apart from the one game against Ivory Coast? We can’t just put him in there because he plays for Benfica. You said it yourself that we need a CM who can handle most of the possession and then Samaris can do what he does best. The reality is we don’t have that type of CM but Androutsos provides more than Kourbelis and Samaris. Don’t forget Samaris and Kourbelis are more suited to be CBs rather than midfielders. They can’t control the midfield or the game. They are at best ball playing CBs. We haven’t got a Busquets, Xavi or Vidal type player. Who can play that holding role as good as they can. Samaris isn’t at that level anyways. We are better off in my opinion to play pure CMs or turn Pelkas and Mantalos as CMs. If we do that we have some decent options. Such as Androutsos, Galanopoulos, Bouchalakis, Pelkas, Mantalos and Zeca. We should pick 2 of these players and go from there.

                  I understand where your coming from Don about playing expirienced players at a higher level but what’s better to have on your team talent or game time. I’d take talent and quality all day no matter the age. I’d also take workhorses who run and tackle hard.

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                  • Androutsos has almost no game time at Atromitos. There's no way he can play for Greece at this time. He may have a future, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

                    We need to play one of Bouchalakis or Tachtsidis in the eleven. We cannot afford to leave one of them out. Van't Schip seems to have understood that hence the starting role Bouchalakis had in both games since he's been in charge.

                    I agree that Samaris has been disappointing and poor for Greece, but he can be effective if played in a manner that suits his abilities. Alternatively, we can play Samaris as a half-back, basically a sweeper in front of the defense (the role Siovas attempted to play for Greece against Italy) or keep him as an option from the bench to help close out games.

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                    • Samaris is a waste of a spot in my opinion. Galanopoulos and Bouchalakis would be great together. Pelkas should play deeper. He has played there before. He shouldn’t play in the wing. Mantalos and Fetfa have the CAM spot covered.

                      I know Androutsos hasn’t played and that’s why we should have B teams. Everyone would get to play and we would have more options. We should abolish the third division and have b sides for Superleague and Superleague 2 teams. They are like reserve teams and also the youth can get involved. Then there would be no excuse of a player not playing.

                      Androutsos was doing fine at Olympiakos until Pedro Martins came in. He then saw limited playing time and should’ve went a loan ages ago. Not ver smart to leave a talented young player such as Androutsos. The game I saw him play against Saudi Arabia a few years ago he looked good and only played like 15 minutes. Even though we lost 2-0 he almost set up a goal scoring chance and Koulouris hit the post I believe. This was under Skibbe where he played all the Greek players from the league. A game by the way where Limnios looked terrible.

                      I guess it was just a friendly and towards the end of the season. We could use a player like Androutsos in the team.

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                      • Androutsos isn't ready and that's why OSFP loaned him. He's not ready to play for Greece.

                        Galanopoulos isn't better than Zeca, Kourbelis and Samaris. He is a good alternative to these players, but not a superior option.

                        I think dropping Samaris to the bench is understandable, but not off the team.

                        We have to identify the problem areas and look at our strengths given all our options at our disposal. From there, we can decide how to balance the team.

                        I think we have already a good group of players. The only ones missing from the last selection were Mitroglou, Donis, Tachtsidis, and maybe Koutris. It's just a matter now of finding the right mix and giving the spine of the team a chance to really gel. For me, Sokratis, Manolas, Zeca, Donis, and Fortounis are automatic starters. If they're fit, they're in. We might want to save Fortounis to brought on late in games against strong teams, but every other team he starts. Then you have start looking at a case by case basis (e.g., Vlahodimos or Barkas, Tachtsidis or Bouchalakis, etc.). Those case by case players deserve a proper run of games. We can't keep starting this player or that player. So if we play Barkas, we have to stick to Barkas. We can't do what Anastasiadis did and play three different keepers in three different games. And we have to identify who is the better choice between those options. In my opinion, we should really be starting Vlahodimos in goal, but Barkas had started against Italy the first time and he did well. He has been playing since under Van't Schip. Obviously Van't Schip would like to play Barkas against Italy again. There's no point switching to Vlachodimos, not now anyways.

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                        • I think with Donis he would be of good use as a super sub in my opinion. To give us speed on the counter and give the oppositions defence a headache. Masouras and Fetfatzidis deserve to start in my opinion.

                          With Androutsos, the truth is he can do a bit of everything. He plays smart passes and his pace, agility and energy is a big advantage to his game. Has great movement and can win possession. Not very smart to neglect the type of talent he is. Has played many games for the Greece youth sides and scored a good amount of goals too. Can’t say the same for Samaris early in his career. Samaris seems to be a late bloomer who only started to standout at the age of 23-24. Had a great seasons at Panionios and Olympiakos. Had a very decent season in his first season at Benfica. After that he stopped developing and in my opinion is now on the decline at age 30.

                          He isn’t a vital piece for Benfica anymore. He is a limited player. In my opinion i can see Bouchalakis making a good signing overseas soon. Has only gotten better over the years. Still needs to do more but he is improving and currently should be the number 1 choice in midfield. Androutsos hands down is better on the ball than both. Androutsos has had great games in Europa along with his best friend Manthatis. It’s not very bright to neglect a player like Manthatis and his development. Both players who right now if everything panned our at Olympiakos would be major players for the NT.

                          Androutsos also had very decent chemistry with Fortounis. Truth be told we are lacking a pure 8 box to box player. And Androutsos is the closest thing we have of a pure 8. I hope he gets heaps of game time at Atromitos. We need him involved. His pace and energy alone would benefit our midfield greatly. We might aswell look at other options now since we are moving towards the 2022 WC. Samaris and Kourbelis are not going to help with moving the ball forward effectively and Tachtsidis and Bouchalakis can’t do it by themselves as seen in the past. Also not as effectively as we would like.

                          Fortounis is the one that collects most of the possession for Greece and is let to do everything by himself. Maybe we can offload a bit of that responsibility to a player like Androutsos.

                          It doesn’t to help that he isn’t playing regularly lately. But as a player he does what a midfielder is supposed to do. Not only that he is a utility player also, can cover many positions and do well. Has played ST,RW, CAM, CM, CDM and RB. As i said before can do a bit of everything. What he should do is train harder in training, listen and show Anastasiou he should be the starting CM (his natural and best position) when given the chance. I believe he is better than Charisis.
                          Last edited by Dean97; 09-21-2019, 11:59 AM.

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                          • Androutsos is not in the squad this week also... wonder why

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                            • He's not ready to play Androutsos. I never argued for players like Ninis and Fetfatzidis to be part of the Greece team until they proved themselves in Europe. Ninis' performance against Roma and Fetfatzidis' goal against Marseilles convinced me they were good enough to play for Greece and make a difference. Androutsos, Masouras, and these other guys are unproven still. We can't just look at a performance these guys had against Volos or Lamia on the weekend and believe they're good enough to play against Italy. Even Fortounis, the best Greek footballer, might not be a wise choice to start in a match with Italy. Fortounis looked worse against Italy than Ninis did against Germany, but at least Fortounis was played in a role that made some sense. Ninis wasn't a winger, he had no pace.

                              And Masouras worked hard against Tottenham, but he needs to prove himself still. I don't think he's the player we need yet.

                              Fetfatzidis is useful insofar he can win a penalty against Italy or maybe tee up an assist inside the penalty area. In my view, he'd be a better option from the bench to play the last 20 minutes when the opposition legs tire a little and he's fresh. He's not fit enough and he lacks the pace to get in-behind Italy's defense.

                              Donis came up at Juventus. He knows Italian football. He has played in Germany and he's now back in France (he was at Nice a couple of seasons ago). He's quick and has good skill on the ball. He's going to be needed to press Italy, run at them, and get in-behind their defense. Donis runs at players more than Masouras does. Fetfatzidis isn't as quick nor as athletic as Donis. He can turn players really well and he's dangerous on the half-turn (unlike Vrousai and Kolovos for forgot how to play football when they played for Greece in this role). There's a noticeable difference in quality between these guys and Donis. It's unimaginable to me he doesn't play against Italy. In the absence of Fortounis, he's the best we've got.

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                              • Our wing-back positions are in bad shape for the Italy contest.

                                I think at RB, Bakakis doesn't have the trust of his teammates (frankly, they're right to distrust him). Torosidis is now at point in his career where he can only play the final 20 minutes of a match at best. When we need to clamp down and hold out for a result, he's the ideal option to bring on as a sub for either the RB or LB positions, but right now he can't start for Greece. Retsos is the ideal option for us moving forward at RB, at least as things stand. Unfortunately, he has yet to find his feet at Leverkusen and I'm not sure he'll be match ready by the time we take on Italy. Curiously, Leverkusen take on Juventus about one week before we play Italy and at a minimum he'll be on the bench for that encounter (he could very well feature in that game). Zeca can play at RB, but he's better in the middle and there isn't a whole lot of difference between himself and Bakakis in the role. We may be stuck with Bakakis for this one. I can only hope Retsos can be ready for this game in time or else he will need to continue with the u21s. If Bakakis plays, the prospect of us getting a result will diminish even more.

                                At LB our problems aren't any better. Firstly, Chiesa will make mince meat of whoever we play at LB. Of our options, Lykogiannis is the only one who can somewhat defend our left-flank and has experience against Italian players. He hasn't played enough for Greece to develop much of an understanding with the rest of the team and that option may have sailed for simply that reason. Koutris is only eligible to play for Olympiacos in domestic games. His lack of experience for Greece and the fact he doesn't compete at a very high level this season suggests to me he's not the right fit for this game. Tsimikas is a likelier option for this game, but again he lacks experience in general and that's a problem. Giannoulis likewise lacks experience and in his case, competes at too low a level. Stafylidis may again have to play this game, but if he plays, the best approach would be to concede that corner of the pitch to Chiesa, try to limit Chiesa to crosses by having Kourbelis and Sokratis box him in, and let Stafylidis play higher up the pitch so that we can stretch the play. I think with Manolas' athleticism and Barkas' height, we could eliminate the threat of Chiesa's crosses, so it might be worthwhile to concede space on the left flank to Chiesa.

                                Stafylidis, to his credit, is quick, can take players on, but more than that, he has experience and he has a good left boot that can strike balls a long distance (two things lacking in our other options). As a left-midfielder (which is how he plays for his Hoffenheim), I rate him, but as a left-back, he's not good enough.

                                Tsimikas may very well get the start, but in that case I'd attempt to defend the flank and have Kourbelis work with him in tandem to try and contain Chiesa to deny him space to cross the ball. I think such a task would be close to futile and that a combination of Sokratis and Kourbelis will be the only thing slowing Chiesa down and denying him space inside the penalty area. I think Chiesa will easily find space to cross no matter who we play at LB.

                                More importantly, I think that for Greece to score, we'll need to be brave and give up strategic space. I don't think it's possible to concede space in the middle of the park. Beyond the left-back position, I see nowhere else we can risk losing space.

                                I'm of the opinion that we should accept our weakness on the left flank and turn the space behind Chiesa into a springboard for our counters and long balls. Stafylidis is a good bet at both breaking forward at pace and also playing long balls behind the Italian defense. I don't think Italy is expecting Stafylidis to play balls in behind their defense and because Pavlidis is something of an unknown quantity, we could very well surprise the Italians. If Stafylidis hits them long enough, Pavlidis could make a clean break behind the defense. If Stafylidis goes short, Donis (or Mantalos) could receive the ball on the half-turn and run at Italy. If they can't turn their marker, they have Tachtsidis as an outlet. That would give us a chance to build another attack again, with Stafylidis providing width on the left, Donis and Mantalos through the center (also, one of them could easily double up the left flank or make a run on the right), and Pavlidis behind Italy's backline. This way Tachtsidis is further back anchoring the play, and that leaves Kourbelis and Zeca anticipating where to press when possession is lost.

                                As soon as we lose it, we need Donis, Pavlidis, Stafylidis, Zeca, Kourbelis and Mantalos to press hard. Stafylidis and Mantalos (or Zeca) may have track Italy's wing-backs. We also may need to play dangerously and commit more men on the press to force an error out of Italy when they have the ball as that might be the only other way we can produce a goal.
                                Last edited by Don Giovanni; 09-22-2019, 02:00 AM.

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