Small Clubs With Big Dreams

Small Clubs With Big Dreams: Season Preview for Apollon, Ionikos, Lamia, OFI, Panaitolikos, PAS, and Volos

By Nick Gargano,


At long last, the most entertaining league in the world starts this weekend. While players from many bigger clubs have already had a taste of competitive football with European competitions and WC Qualifiers underway, most players for Greece’s “smaller” clubs have been hungry to get back on the pitch. Let’s take a look at how each club’s offseason went, and how ready they look for this upcoming season. 



Apollon Smyrnis 


After a stint in Cyprus, manager Giannis Petrakis is back in Greece ready to coach an Apollon team that has steadily improved its roster since their return to the Super League. He’ll have familiar faces in Giorgios Pamlidis, Fabry Castro, and Florentin Matei all coming to the squad this summer to play with him again. 


Additionally, the marquee signing of the summer, EURO 16 winner Bruno Alves, has just been confirmed ready for matchday 1 against Panathinaikos. Put all of these players in front of arguably last year’s best GK Davino Verhulst, and Apollon have a strong side ready to compete this season. PREDICTED FINISH: 11th place


Ionikos 


Perhaps the busiest team of the group this summer, Ionikos suffered a major blow in the preseason when promising AEK loanee Theodosis Macheras suffered a long-term knee injury. The Super League 2 champions also lost last year’s runaway top scorer, Matías Castro. 


Many criticized the Nikaiotes for bringing in a group of older, non-Greek players; but players like Alaixys Romao and Thuram are no strangers to Greek football and had solid seasons for their former clubs last year. Ultimately, with so many key players gone from last year’s side, they’ll probably struggle to maintain form throughout the season. PREDICTED FINISH: 13th place 


Lamia


Manager Michalis Grigoriou will be looking to pick up right where he left off last season with his tight-knit group of players who always fight to grind out results. Unfortunately, star forward Milos Deletic is no longer around to inspire what has been one of the league’s dullest attacks. Regardless, Lamia addressed this problem by adding more attacking depth. 


Forwards Lazar Romanic and Tasos Karamanos can now look forward to playing with two proven Super League attackers in Georgios Manousos and Christos Elefteriadis.  If you know Greek football, you know that you can never count this Lamia team out. 

PREDICTED FINISH: 10th place


OFI 


OFI’s talented roster will be looking to bounce back after a season to forget last year. Their ambitious (by mid table Greek standards, of course) front office stuck with manager Nikos Nipolias, who still needs to prove he can lead his club back to playing winning football. 


The Cretans lost a trio of first team players in Adrian Sardinero, Fabio Sturgeon and Vajebah Sakhor. But could this have been for the better? Felipe Gallegos, Mike van Duinen, and Lazaros Lamprou are just three of the many exciting signings that added some much needed depth to a team that struggles with injuries. 


Speaking of injuries, don’t sleep on this team if Kosmas Tsilianidis can get and stay fully fit to transform this team into the top six contenders we saw in 2019-20. 

PREDICTED FINISH: 8th place


Panaitolikos 


For a team that barely stayed in the top division last year, Panaitolikos had an impressive preseason where they managed to score plenty of goals. After a string of seasons fighting off relegation, the Agriniotes opted for a complete roster overhaul and parted ways with manager Traianos Dellas. 


New manager Giannis Anastasiou will have something to prove after a failed stint with Atromitos in 2019, and former Premier League striker Rudy Gestede should be the one to watch this season. While Panaitolikos’ dedicated fanbase will finally be back in the stands this season, the team may be in for yet another relegation scrap. PREDICTED FINISH: 14th place    

  

PAS Giannina 


PAS have news to rejoice over and lament over from this summer. The good news is that they managed to secure the services of fan favorite Pedro Conde once again, who lit up the Super League and singlehandedly willed his team to victory on many occasions during his last stint in Giannina. 


Additionally, their preferred defensive back four remained in tact- RB Manolis Saliakas in particular is primed to have another great season. The bad news is that they lost their two top scorers, Christos Elefteriadis and Georgios Pamlidis to direct Super League rivals Lamia and Apollon. On top of all of that Argyris Giannikis, one of the top young managers in Greece also left. In the wake of his departure, I hope this fan is OK.. 

PREDICTED FINISH: 7th place



Volos NPS 


After the departure of rising star Tasos Douvikas, Volos’ high flying attack will have to find goals elsewhere. While they had solid showings in their preseason friendlies under the command of new 32 year old manager Guille Abascal, they were one of the league’s real losers in the transfer window. In addition to losing Douvikas, they’ll have to replace half of their back line after losing Gerasimos Mitoglou and Tekio. 


On the bright side, Volos managed to hold onto the LB Franco Ferrari after being courted by several bigger clubs. Ever since Volos joined Greece’s top flight, they have constantly proved the doubters wrong. Regardless, it will still be tough to top last year’s 7th place finish.

PREDICTED FINISH: 12th place


Hellas Football 


Follow @nickG__73

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football players who could’ve played for the Greek national team but didn’t

Image
Football players who could’ve played for the Greek national team but didn’t By Stephen Kountourou As Ethniki fans, we appreciate those who choose to represent Greece over another nation. It may come from tribalism, national pride, and a close connection with Greek culture. If a football player decides to play for Greece, they also represent us.  It's why supporters were thrilled at the news that Odysseus Vlachodimos, who was born in Germany, was convinced to be the starting goalkeeper for the last decade.  Why the late George Baldock’s passing wrenched at the hearts of every Greek who saw him line up in blue and white. Or most recently, after months of anticipation, Konstantinos Karetsas chose Greece over Belgium, despite being one of the highest-rated young talents in Europe right now, and lit up Hampden Park in our 0-3 victory over Scotland. However, some players do the opposite, for one reason or another, choose to play for a different national team despite having the optio...
Read more

Top 10 Chants in Greek Football

Image
Top 10 Chants in Greek Football By Nick Tsambouniaris, Greek ultras are known around the world for their passionate support. Atmospheres at games are electric to say the least as fans act as the 12 th man for their team. Here are my top 10 chants in Greek football with a hyperlink to the YouTube video of them being belted out in full glory. 10. AEK – RE BIN LADEN This cheeky party starter aimed at Olympiakos from AEK’s Original 21 makes it as number 10. As you can see in the below link, every single fan is jumping and singing along with purpose, making for a great atmosphere. 10. AEK – RE BIN LADEN 9. PAOK – IRTHAME SKASTOI APO TIN KLINIKI Gate 4 of PAOK are notoriously known for creating an intimidating atmosphere wherever they go. This particular chant gets extra points for its climax ending when the fans rise from the ground as one jumping all over the place. The chant itself is also funny and sums up the passion of Greek football fans in general as it says they...
Read more

The new generation of talented Greek footballers

Image
The new generation of talented Greek footballers By Stephen Kountourou Opportunity, experience and faith. These are just some ingredients in progressing youth players to the senior level. Some leagues are great at producing, promoting and developing academy prospects for their future football careers.  Of the big five leagues, La Liga, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga have been lorded as the best for producing young domestic talent. La Masia is the biggest example for Spain, PSG, who in more recent times has finally attempted to take advantage of their melting pot of young talent in Pairs and Germany with Borussia Dortmund, who not only produce youth from their academy but are excellent at identifying players from abroad.  Other Leagues like the Dutch Eredivisie and the Belgian Pro League have also been great gateway leagues for their youth and players from elsewhere, to hone their skills in exciting attacking competitions before attempting to take the next big step to the big leagu...
Read more