Vasilis Tsartas

[Don Giovanni]

The man deserves his own appreciation thread.

This is how he describes his assist to Charisteas against Spain at Euro 2004:

Ήταν μια πασα για μένα όπως για κάποιον να βάλει σ'ένα ποτήρι να πίνει νερο.

He had talent and he wasn't shy about it either. He's one of the most quotable too. A simply brilliant man.

[Dean97]

He does deserve it. He’s a legend. I wish I was older to understand how good he was. From the highlights I saw he was an excellent free kick taker and had an eye for a pass. Can’t say that for most of our midfielders today. He actually spoke in the past about the national team saying that we need to play players who are playing. Stavros Tsoukalas was the example at the time when he was playing at Asteras.

I remember in the old forums there were big arguments about comparing him to Tachtsidis. Some we’re saying they were similar and some were saying they weren’t. In my opinion i think he is better than Tachtsidis and also better than Fortounis. I’d like to see Fortounis test himself in a bigger league.

Anyways I think Tsartas would be a good coach as he has a footballing brain and understands the game very well. It’s up to him what he does.

[Amorgos]

Tachtsidis and Tsiartas dont go in the same sentence... I watched him play and knew after seen him make the most amazing passes especially that I was watching something special

[Don Giovanni]

In Spain, they dubbed him El Mago. This goal against Osasuna was probably his greatest highlight moment while there:

He also impressed against Real Madrid with a trademark free-kick and once got a hat-trick of assists to spur Sevilla to a 3-2 win over Barcelona:

He repeated these feats at AEK in the UCL, with two assists and a goal from a direct free-kick against Real Madrid's Galaticos.

Even in Greece, his quality was almost always on display. Check out this assist he made for Nikolaiidis to open the score against Olympiacos in the 2001-02 season:

Skip to the 0:23 mark. This was typical of him. Look at how he controls the ball with his chest (it wasn't an easy pass). With his back against the run of play, look at how he turns and half volleys a ball over a muddy, waterlogged pitch with a perfect ball into space for Nikolaiidis to go tete-a-tete and score. It's an extraordinary piece of football, but for Tsartas it really was as simple as he described it in my post above. For him, this came naturally, whereas any other player can spend a career never replicating even a single play like this.

We can debate who was better between he, Saravakos, Delikaris, and Hatzipanagis, but there is no doubt that Tsartas was the best of his generation. It's a shame he didn't make a bigger name for himself. Had Greece enjoyed more international success a decade earlier, he would have had more acclaim. It's too bad we didn't have a coach of Rehhagel's quality sooner.

[AEKftw21]

Tachtsidis and Tsiartas dont go in the same sentence... I watched him play and knew after seen him make the most amazing passes especially that I was watching something special

It is like comparing Iniesta with Bruno, my friend.

[aek66]

similar to talking bad about someone recently deceased - we can say things about tsartas.

not the player that first came up with aek and was shockingly not taken to usa 1994. probably would have left greece by 1996 if showcased at usa 1994. a player that would run at defenders - he stopped running by 1997-98, legs taken away by prima-donna syndrome. the head wasn't level..too many ridiculous personality conflicts with just about everyone.

i applaud otto for handling tsartas impeccably. i was screaming for tsartas, late in matches to take pressure off..and maybe otto realized that the more minutes tsartas got, the more selfish he would get.

still the best talent of recent generations. i won't begrudge him that. saravakos was not as talented and could also be moody, but an otto would always select a saravakos over tsartas because saravakos was gritty, a fighter.

not sure why taxi has been compared to him, not very similar..to me, anyways. only similarity was that each got sidetracked, either by ego or by juvenille activities.

[Don Giovanni]

He was very young for the 1994 World Cup. Machlas struggled and I suspect Tsartas may have as well, but once Panagoulias fell out with Karapialis and then later with Saravakos in the finals proper, bringing in Tsartas may just as well have proven a masterstroke.

Tsartas came up in that era when it was possible to get away with that style of play in a more advanced role. By the time he retired, he would likely have been developed the way Pirlo had been if he had left Greece in 2004. But in that era, especially by the late 2000s, just about every team had a lackadaisical dekari similar or exactly like him. Rui Costa, Zidane, Bergkamp... these were all players who made the game play at the pace they set.

Of the coaches we had, Otto seemed to appreciate how best to play him. I think we couldn't afford to play him against quality teams. With him on the pitch, we defended a man less. But he completely tipped the balance against the Czechs, who were drained after 90 minutes. We went into extra-time with no shots on goal and once he was on, we had I think 8 or so shots on target. It was Topalidis who nudged Rehhagel to play him. The game before, against France, Tsartas put on a disappearance act. Against Russia, he came on with Greece in desperate need of goals and he nearly put one in from the corner (hitting the bar). Against Spain he provided that assist out of nowhere. I can't imagine Greece winning or even qualifying for the finals if not for his talent. He was our x-factor.

Tachtsidis was played in the "Pirlo" role once he left for Italy. At AEK he showed exceptional vision, but he never took off like Tsartas had. Tsartas would go on to become the top goalscorer in Greece before left. Tachtsidis had never really developed in Greece and was never given enough playing time to grow as a player. He does well in Series B, but in Series A he's like a deer in front of headlights. He was no better at Olympiacos. I think he struggles psychologically when under pressure, but he's more at home at a level he knows he's too good for and has less pressure. The other issue he's slow and still needs to improve weak areas of his game, like heading. Time is now working against him, but he's lucky to have Liverani as his coach who keeps faith in him and who can teach Tachtsidis exactly what he needs to do in order to excel in his role.

His goal here, for Roma, seemed to have tipped him for much better things to come:

I think there is some sort of issue mentally which has held him back.

Saravakos was tenacious and dogged. He had great acceleration, vision, and coolness. In this goal he scored here against Finland (probably his for Greece), he showcased his raw, natural ability to its fullest:

He's one of the few Greek players who probably could have gone on to some level of international acclaim. Had he come up now, no question he'd been playing at the highest levels, maybe not Real Madrid, but the highest levels no less.