Asteras Tripolis Season Preview

Asteras Tripolis Season Preview

By Alexander Koutakos



Life in the Greek footy world is finally back to normal….. Fans are back in the stands, Asteras is loading up on Spanish players and the season has disgracefully been postponed twice over!


Clubs have had a long pre-season and many changes have been made throughout the league. A club with one of the strongest showings in pre-season results-wise is Asteras Tripolis. In this blog, I will take a look at Asteras's results in pre-season, transfers and season expectations. 


Pre-season:


The pre-season for Asteras was like no other. 6 wins out of 6 and 15 goals scored and only 1 conceded. The win against AEK(1-0) and the thrashings of Volos(4-0) and Atromitos(4-1) were certainly the highlights of the pre-season. 


The squad was heavily rotated and new players found their way into the XI. 


Asteras will be looking to build on this momentum for the regular season. However, the regular season has been postponed and thus, Asteras' momentum generated from the pre-season now means nothing.


Rastavac knows this and the club is still preparing and training intensely despite the season's postponement. Time will tell if the postponement of the season will help Asteras or be to its detriment.


Transfers:


Asteras's transfer window saw a lot of players entering and exiting.


Majors exits include: Kotsiras who went to Panathinaikos, Fernandez who went to the Middle East, Pasalidis who went to OFI, Tzimas who went to PAOK, Suarez who also went to the Middle East and Pseftis who went to AC Milan. 


Major incomings include Atienza from Zaragoza, Soni from Girona, Carmona from Betis, Benito from Eibar and Santafe from Osasuna. As usual the major incomings are from La Liga and La Liga 2.


 The key from this transfer window was keeping Rastavac as head coach and retaining as many key pieces as possible. Alvarez, Barrales and Sito are still in Tripoli so things aren’t dire for the Arcadians. There is still plenty of talent in the squad.


On another note, many youth players have been promoted to the 1st team and look poised to earn their professional debuts. One such player is Michopoulos who plays as a center-mid. Last season, he notched 10 goals and 2 assists in the Super League u-19. Many of his goals were from range and his eye for goal is outstanding. If Asteras at any point is lacking goals from the midfield, Michopoulos will be the one to fill the void.


Expectations:


The main expectation for this season for Asteras is to finish in a European spot and if not, to finish top 6. Last year, Asteras missed out on a European spot by 9 points which was largely due to a large number of draws(15) and also a rough patch at the start of last season. If some of the draws can be turned into wins, Asteras can very well make Europe this season. 


The team this year has harnessed a lot of  experience from last year's push for a  European spot and many players are very determined to play European football next season. The will and determination is there. 


The questions are, can Asteras finish off bottom teams more effectively this year, can they reduce the number of draws and can they take points from the “big 5” as they did last year?


If the pre-season is something to judge on, myself and the Asteras faithful should be very optimistic that they in-fact will.


European football is a possibility and should be the goal.


The club needs European revenue to move forward and expand as an organization.


PAME ASTERAS!


Hellas Football


Follow @AKoutakos on Twitter 

Comments

  1. Greatest Football Player of All Time2 September 2021 at 12:13

    Nice Blog!

    The blog is very informative and really interesting.

    Thank you for sharing us.

    ReplyDelete

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