Saudi Arabia friendly thoughts

Friend of Hellas Football, Nick Gargano was lucky enough to watch our Ethniki Omada play live and has kindly shared his thoughts on the match from before kick off to full time. 

THOUGHTS ON LINEUP AND ANTICIPATION FOR MATCH 

The anticipation in the weeks leading up to this intriguing matchup against Saudi Arabia has felt much different feel than recent friendlies against Egypt and Switzerland.  

In what should come as a relief for fans, Skibbe has finally ventured out of his comfort zone and selected an entirely different squad with all but one Super League player. It was interesting to see how a squad full of fresh faces fared up against a team gearing up for the World Cup.  

That being said, Skibbe was still up to his usual bizarre tricks and once again called up Alexandros Tziolis. In some ways, Skibbe’s thought process is somewhat understandable as Tziolis is a veteran and regular for Al Fayha in the Saudi League who will undoubtedly understand the Saudi style of play better than anyone else on the squad (yet under this logic, one can’t help but wonder why a red hot Giannis Fetfatzidis didn’t get the call up).  

That being said, Tziolis has been well past his prime for quite some time now, yet he continues to get called up and limit the team with dull passes and touches that kill any moves going forward.  This must change if Skibbe truly wants to move forward and find a new look team going into the nations league.  

Although both players were injured for this call up, either Manolis Siopis or Dimitris Kourbelis would bring much more life to the pitch going forward and must take Tziolis’ spot in the future.  Finally, it would have been nice to see the young star in the making Dinos Mavropanos make his debut with the Ethniki, but he still had commitments to Arsenal.  

REACTION TO THE GAME 

From the get-go on a warm night in Seville, it was clear that the Ethniki were completely disorganized.  With a hapless defense (Giannoulis was shown a straight red card in the 43rd), an almost nonexistent midfield that couldn’t string together more than 2 straight passes, and a typical night from the forwards who showed zero creativity in the attack.  

The World Cup-bound Saudi Arabia side took advantage of this uninspired performance from the Greeks and got the better of goalkeepers Vasilis Barkas and Andreas Gianniotis in the 19th and 79th minutes, respectively, taking the match 2-0.  

Aside from an impressive long-range free kick from Tasos Bakasetas that went off of the post in the 33rd and a close range shot that Efthimis Koulouris saw rifle off of the near post in the 78th, the Ethniki had no real threat of ever scoring a goal in this match.  

There were moments in the match where the quality of Dimitris Pelkas and Petros Mantalos was on display as they tried to take defenders head-on and incorporate their teammates into the attack.  But the truth is nobody that stepped on the pitch on Tuesday looked like the wanted to be there, and for this there is no one else to blame but the coaching staff, namely the head coach Michael Skibbe.  

Sure, he came in during a dark time of Greek football and offered stability to a team that needed it in the worst way, but Skibbe continues to prove he cannot learn from his mistakes.  Tziolis has had zero business being called up for over a year now, let alone wearing the captains armband!  But squad selection and tactics are one thing, on Tuesday Skibbe proved that the problems go much deeper.  

Given that  the squad was so young and there were many players debuting and making cases for more playing time on the national team going forward, the lack of passion and energy was inexcusable. 

By Nick Gargano for Hellas Football