THE DEMISE OF GREEK CLUBS IN EUROPE

THE DEMISE OF GREEK CLUBS IN EUROPE

By Maik Lev,

It has been another embarrassing and disastrous season for Greek clubs in Europe. In the Europa League, OFI and Aris could not get passed the 2^nd Round of Europa League Qualifying. OFI were beaten 1-0 at home by Apollon Limassol, while the much-hyped Aris, were embarrassed 2-1 at home by little known Ukrainian club Kolos Kovalivka.

AEK showed some promise early, getting passed Swiss side St. Gallen and German side Wolfsburg to make it to the Europa League group stages, but that’s where the good times ended for the Enosi. A series of listless performances, saw them finish bottom of their group with 1 win.

In the Champions League, PAOK also started strongly, knocking out Besiktas, then Benfica in the qualification rounds, before some inexplicable performances saw them eliminated in the playoff round by Krasnodar of Russia, confining them to the Europa League once again.

Once there, they failed to win either of their group matches against lowly Omonoia. An impressive and promising victory at home to PSV was offset by a tragic collapse, resulting in defeat in the away match in Holland. Classic PAOK Jekyll & Hyde stuff. All in all a disappointment, as they finished with only 1 victory and failed to qualify for the knockout stages.

For their part, Olympiakos did it comfortably enough in qualifying, dispatching Omonoia 2-0 on aggregate to make the Champions League group stages. In what was a fairly tough group featuring Manchester City, Porto and Marseille, we witnessed inconsistent performances from them. They were unable to finish in the top 2 of the group, but managed to finish 3^rd and secured a spot in the knock stages of the Europa League.

Over the years and specifically in the last 10 years, the rank and reputation of the Greek Super League has dropped dramatically. Currently sitting 17^th in the UEFA co-efficient rankings (countries are ranked on their clubs performances in Europe, the better they perform, the more clubs they have in European competitions and the later they start off in the qualification rounds), once upon a time we were 6^th in the co-efficient and had 3 clubs in the group stages of the Champions League.

Those days seem a very long way away and a long time ago now.

There are several reasons for this drop, no doubt there are some external factors, but the overwhelming reason is the across the board drop in standards and practices throughout Greek domestic football. From the top flight down.
 

Where once, selectively chosen foreign players were brought in by clubs, to help nurture young Greek players and to boost the experience and quality of a squad. Post Bosman in 1995, (ruling from UEFA which prohibited domestic leagues, from imposing quotas on foreign players in teams & squads) it became a flood of rejects, players specifically from but not exclusively from, the lower leagues of South America, Spain and Portugal.

Player development has also taken a back seat to the point where it almost doesn’t even exist in Greece anymore. As a result, Greece has been surpassed by many countries on this front, who just do it better and have better coaches and systems of doing things.

The vast majority of the football clubs in Greece have what I would call, low football IQ and have a distinct lack and shortage of knowledgeable and intelligent people in positions of power and authority at these clubs.

They regularly want the easy way out and are easily swayed and influenced by crafty agents and player managers.

Why waste time and effort developing Greek academy players, when you have a person who can get you a player quickly and easily and for relatively not that much money? The agent need only mention to Greek clubs that his player was once on the books of Osasuna, Zaragoza, Braga or Cruzeiro and Greek club officials salivate. It doesn’t matter whether that was 10 years ago or the player spent 5 minutes at these clubs.

The phenomenon in Greek society of ξενομανία (the love of everything foreign) which has sprung up in recent years in Greece, I believe also plays a role.

As a result of all this, less Greek players are being given opportunities to come through the Greek systems to play first team football and the quality of the football in the league has suffered as a result.

Of course all this can be by-passed and if clubs were strong, could choose to ignore the snakes that call themselves player agents and managers, that pollute the football ecosystem and control proceedings. Greek clubs could just go ahead and pick Greek youngsters, but the other way must be easier and cheaper.

Yes there are other factors for Greek football’s drop:

The opening up of clubs and leagues post-Communism in Eastern Europe, means these countries now have money to spend and are not shy about doing it, Greek clubs also have more and new competition for quality foreign imports.

The widening of the financial gap between Greek clubs and the wealthy clubs and leagues of Western Europe has also grown exponentially. It has become much more difficult to compete against these super clubs in European competitions.

Another point and this cannot be quantified with numbers or statistics, but I am of the view that Greek clubs just do not take Europe seriously enough. They view getting the 3 points against Lamia, Atromitos or Giannina on the weekend, as more of a priority instead of putting their best foot forward in Europe.

Yes domestic football is the club’s bread and butter, but is it that hard to put effort into both?

All of this like a domino effect, is causing issues for the Ethniki. We now have a shortage of quality players actually playing first team football in Greece and in Europe, to choose from to represent the National Team.

We have seen in recent years, a surge in EPO scouring Europe and beyond, looking at Greeks in the Diaspora to fill the gap, or even players who have minimal connection to Greece or Greek football.

This might be a good short-term answer, but it will not fix Greek football’s issues.

From everything we are hearing in Greece, Ethniki coach John van’t Schip, along with his assistants Michael Valkanis and Aron Winter, have been in contact with and are now working with the Greek clubs in an attempt to rectify these issues.

Such as improving player development & identification and implementing a specific style of football at youth level which is great. But all it will take is a few bad results for the Ethniki and these guys will be on their way, moved on and gone, leaving others to come in who will have their own ideas, with whatever progress made previously coming to nothing.
 
Greek football as a whole is paying for the poor practices of Greek clubs. It is not some sort of shock or coincidence, that Greek clubs have done nothing in Europe for many years now and the Ethniki as a result, is now a shadow of what it once was and I don’t only refer to the Golden Era of 2004-2014, but we are way behind where we were in the 80s and 90s too.

The question remains, does the Federation and do the clubs really care, in wanting to improve this situation?

Hellas Football

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