ECQ Greece vs Italy

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  • i watched the highlites of scotland x cyprus and huge kudos to cyprus. really deserved better...scored off a corner, something that greece didn't even win until the end of a 0-3 match.

    i agree with the above posts, i'm very opinionated on most positions being skill-set specific, especially wide attackers and we forge on with players who have absolutely no business on the wings. they can't take on opponents on occasion, which compacts our attacking front...obviously, that helps a defense. the other key is winning time, and greece never has any time. holding the ball for a few seconds on the wing allows the others to make forward runs...forces the opponent to track. the onus is now on the opponent to remain organized and keep a good defensive shape. greece can't do this with crap wingers and we lose those massive attacking benefits. lobbing balls over the top is a pitiful attempt to mask a serious problem. a moody fetfa or gianniotas should be considered, along with a donis or a pelkas...these should be the manager's pleasant headaches; donis at CF or wing?? - not compounding his migraine headaches with players out of position.

    as far as CM, a player like taxi is not intimidated by big names and has played killer balls against these big names at club level. whatever his drawbacks are..they do not compare to the drawbacks/non-existence of siovas/kourbelis/samaris and siopis in the CM. siopis played high...we are going to rely on siopis to play those killer balls?

    i do believe that all of those players, despite their physical (size for siopis, pace/mobility for siovas) and attacking limitations (all of them), they would have gotten some help by having competent wingers who can spread the pitch and force the opponent to defend them. when i hear that taxi is slow and has no mobility, yet, siovas played in the CM, i wonder if the world turned upside-down...at least taxi can play killer balls and force the opponent to concentrate on marking..either man or zonal. what was siovas doing out there?

    as far RB, this is a problem for us. LB, i still like stafylidis, he does have an incredible amount of rust on him. he has followed the footsteps of a basinas, a lazaros, samaras...players that lost time at club level and never really recovered. let's hope he turns it around going forward.

    we obviously don't have the talent of 20 years ago, when we didn't qualify for anything. we still had a dabizas, a tsartas, a georgatos, even frantzeskos...players that were bolstered by our 1997 u-20 side. i don't see any relief on the horizon.

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    • The conditioning of some of these guys is terrible. Let's start here before addressing our technical inferiority. I think we lose to finland for this reason.

      Respect to the italians for not humiliating us on the scoreline even though they could've easily. Historically they tend to do this, so after 3-0, i knew they'd let up.

      As for anastasiadis, I'd like to think he was clowning us and isn't that stupid. BTW, well done to savvidis for picking him.

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      • true...since the side is heavily domestic-based. i own a greek club, why would i spend money for fitness? facility? equipment? trainers and physio-therapists?

        let the albanians and finns lift weights, where the 'quality' of their footballers doesn't dramatically decrease after the 65th minute of a match. fatigue causes mistakes, mistakes lead to goals against.

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        • Well some players do need to do better fitness-wise--Fortounis comes to mind. But we aren't in the stone ages anymore. Even the NT is better organized than that:



          Finland isn't fitter than our guys. They sit back, absorb, believe in themselves, and in Pukki they have someone who can score the goals. This isn't a formidable team. It's really a matter for Greece to maintain concentration and compactness, and then to work the ball to create openings. We have to make our quality count against Finland. In Sokratis and Manolas, we have enough quality to take Pukki out. It's up to Fortounis to find the goals.

          The problems with player conditioning has a lot to do with the league ending too early and the sheer workload players have in the modern game. It's not just Greek players showing serious issues, it's an issue across the board. This is where I think the fault also belongs to UEFA. The Nations League concept and Euro finals need some rethinking. Ultimately, they will need to decide whether to get rid of NL or get rid of the Euros. Both tournaments can't continue as they do now. And the competition schedules need to work in a way that makes sense for optimal performance of the players.

          Can the clubs do better? The lack of quality in Greece means they don't try to and the Ethniki is more of an afterthought in Greece, as it had been before Euro 2004. That's on the EPO and major owners to come together and do what's right for the NT. The NT most rise to the level above everything else. We need a better attitude towards the NT at an administrative level.

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          • For all the complaints about Anastasiadis' approach to Italy, I must say some of it was logical and smart. He did the right thing getting Greece to get out of their shell and avoid the same problems we saw at the start against Bosnia, where we played too deep and invited far too much pressure. Clearly this is an area that requires much work. Where the big problems emerged, however, was in the lack of experience, lack of fitness (both match-wise and physical), lack of tactical sophistication of our players, and our lack of quality on the ball in the middle of the park. Our eleven was not accustomed to each other and their roles. It's also evident that Greece is struggling to find a way to make a back-three work. I don't think Anastasiadis is sophisticated enough in his style of coaching to make the system work. His approach is very Harry Redknapp, very English, which might explain why he showed his players the UCL final in preparation for the Italy match, to get them to play more like the English.

            I thought the idea of playing Fortounis high up in a free role was smart. It allowed for Fortounis to occupy Chiellini and Bonucci with intelligent runs, in theory it was meant to carve openings for his teammates. Unfortunately, Kolovos and Masouras lacked experience and quality to make their efforts count against Italy, but it was a smart move in my view. Anastasiadis gets a lot flack for this decision, but it was clever of him. A player like Koulouris would have done nothing against Italy, too small and too inexperienced for the likes of Chiellini. Mitroglou too is stagnant and plays like a lamppost. He's in dreadful form. Fortounis, by contrast, is very intelligent, smart enough to draw defenders and create openings for teammates to do the real damage. I was thinking to have dropped Fortounis, but this was the best way to play him. He just lacked the proper support in the midfield and attack to make his efforts count. He also needs to improve his fitness levels and develop a better pressing game. He has enough talent on the ball, now he needs to improve when chasing it.

            I will say that Anastasiadis has done things with Fortounis not even Michel would have done and Michel is the coach I would have favored over Anastasiadis. Even I thought he would have been useless, but when we play top sides, this appears to be the best way to make use of Fortounis and it could prove highly effective. This is one innovation Anastasiadis introduced that I would keep moving forward. Fortounis may prove too valuable to keep on the bench and I hope Fortounis understands what he must do to reach the more required level for Greece because Pelkas could prove the better option, even if he's not nearly as talented, simply because he's physically more capable of pressing and chasing opponents.

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