Which players should Olympiakos keep and sell for next season? 

By Stephen Kountourou

(Opinion Blog)

It was a disappointing night in Europe for Olympiakos. Thrylos are seemingly out of the Conference League, after a 1-4 loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv, with the second leg still to be played and the possibility of an unlikely turnaround. 

Some good news broke early the next day, however, as Evangelos Marinakis had agreed to sign Jose Luiz Mendilibar until the summer of 2025. This not only shows faith in the job the Spanish coach has done, since his arrival, but also gives fans hope that stability is just around the corner for the club. 

With the playoffs still to come, Olympiakos is already preparing for next season. Even if all objectives are not achieved in this campaign, there could be something positive to build on for 2024/25.  

Who should stay and who should go?

Ever since the January transfer window closed, the conversation surrounding players in the last few months of their contracts has remained. 

When including players on loan players out on loan and if there were no renewals and no buy options activated, then there are only 12 players currently registered with the first team come pre-season. 

Quite simply, this has to be sorted out soon. Some of Olympiakos' most important players this season now have the chance to sign for another club on a pre-contract or let their deals expire and leave Piraeus after the 30th of June. These players with contracts due to expire include: 

Kostas Fortounis

Giorgos Masouras

Ayoub El Kaabi

Kostas Tzolakis

Athanasios Papadoudis

Nelson Abbey

Quini

Vicente Iborra

Mady Camara

João Carvalho

Stevan Jovetic

Youssef El Arabi

The names that many fans believe should be renewed beyond the summer are clear. Kostas Fortounis, Giorgos Masouras, and Ayoub El Kaabi are important parts of the team this season, and with the case of the first two names, integral to the club for a long time. The rest of the list is more up for debate. 

Kostas Tzolakis is a young, talented goalkeeper with a high potential. While he should also be given a new contract, you wonder if leaving Olympiakos to get consistent first-team football would be better for his career in the long run. Likewise, Athanasios Papadoudis, who performed excellently for the B team in Super League 2 should be given a new deal.

El Arabi is another one who is up for debate. He is arguably Thrylos' greatest striker of the modern era and can still come off the bench to score and be a positive leadership figure in the dressing room. But how long can he play that role before his time at the club comes to a natural end? Plus he is on significant wages for a player who is no longer a guaranteed starter.

The rest feel more self-explanatory. At the time of writing, Mady Camara is close to joining Sevilla and will depart after his contract expires. João Carvalho, a good squad player, has never truly kicked on. Every new manager has started the midfielder to begin with, only for him to fall down the pecking order, so his departure makes sense. 

Iborra, Quini & Jovetic also all look likely to leave after the end of the season. Nelson Abbey will probably return to England and sign with sibling club Nottingham Forest.  

Make loans permanent

There is also the question of which loans will be permanent for next season. The list of players on loan with an option to buy including fees are as follows:

Daniel Podence (€6 million)

Andre Horta (€6 million)

David Carmo (€18 million)

Fran Navarro (€7.5 million)

Omar Richards (No option)

Sotiris Alexandropoulos (€4.5 million)

Jovane Cabral (€3 million)

For many Olympiakos supporters, the top three that need to be signed permanently are Podence, Horta and Carmo. Podence overall has been a crucial part of Olympiakos season for goals and assists, as well as making it clear that he loves the club and loves living in Greece. It would be more down to negotiations with parent club Wolves.

Horta, who signed in January, has been one of the key components to the great start Mendilibar made in Piraeus, as part of a midfield trio with Santiago Hezze and Chiquinho. 

The big question is Carmo. He has solidified the backline since he arrived from Porto but it will be very difficult to keep him beyond the summer for two reasons. Firstly, the fee. An €18 million price tag is something Olympiakos has never and probably will never spend on one player.

Secondly, Porto manager Sérgio Conceição, who Carmo fell out with, will reportedly be leaving the Dragons when his contract ends on the 30th of June 2024. This means that there could be an open door for Carmo to come back to the Portuguese side if he wishes to try to compete for a place. 

The only realistic way Olympiakos could keep him for next season is either to find a way to lower the fee or to request that his loan be extended for the 2024/25 campaign. 

Fran Navarro, who has been decent since he joined from Porto, has a high option to buy fee, but Thrylos could realistically find a way to get the price lowered. Although renewing El Kaabi, in my opinion, would be the cheaper and lower-risk option. 

Sotiris Alexandropoulos, who looked like a player that the club would sign permanently after some good performances, has fallen down the pecking order since Mendilibar’s arrival. As a Greek player, and for the fee, he would be a good one to keep. But it will be down to whether he wishes to stay in Piraeus and fight for a place or try his luck back at Sporting Lisbon or elsewhere in Europe. 

Omar Richards has no option to buy so he will return to Nottingham Forest. Jovane Cabral hasn’t had a chance to show his quality so it is too early to judge whether he will be signed permanently or leave at the end of his loan.

Shifting more deadwood

Lastly, the players currently out on loan need a mention. Olympiakos want to generate more funds, keep themselves from breaching financial fair play and have the ability to make loan signings permanent with the shaving of players currently on the books. 

But Mendilibar will use the early stages of pre-season to give these players a chance to prove themselves. Here is the list of players still out on loan and will return after the 30th of June:

Ousseynou Ba

Alexis Kalogeropoulos

Marios Vrousai

Ramon

Aguibou Camara

Jordan Holsgrove

Pierre Kunde

Maximiliano Lovera

Pêpê

Pep Biel

For Ba, Vrousai, Kunde, Lovera and Pepe, it would be a surprise if they remained at the club at the start of next season and will probably be moved on. 

Kalogeropoulos, despite Volos having a poor season, has been solid for them and it would be good for him to remain in Piraeus for his potential. 

Ramon, with Quini potentially leaving, could be given the chance in pre-season, alongside fellow left-backs Ortega and Leidner. 

Aguibou Camara and Holsgrove are having good seasons with their respective clubs and have given themselves the best chance to be considered at Thrylos. But even they could potentially be sold as transfer funds, with their stocks high currently.  

The player with the biggest question mark is Pep Biel. The Spanish forward, who is currently out on loan with German side FC Augsburg, was signed by Olympiakos for a huge fee and Mendiibar may want to see what he can bring to his new project next season. 

But he is also a player that could be sold to recoup the fee he was signed for, to bring in new players or ones currently on loan with a buy option back to the club permanently. 

Learning from past mistakes?

Maybe this time Olympiakos has got it right. But we won't know that until the end of next season. Jose Mendilibar has proved that he is a more than capable manager of dealing with a weekly basis and has been given assurances that regardless of how the 2023/24 season ends he will be in charge for the next campaign. 

He represents an opportunity now for the club to act with more logic than they have done in the past few seasons about signs, sales, footballing identity and mentality to be what Olympiakos has always strived to be in their nearly 100-year history. Sporting excellence and winning. 

The loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv does not reflect badly on Mendilibar, it is a repeat of what fans have witnessed and gotten all too used to before he arrived. 

If the Basque coach does not at least see out his contract then it will show that no one is good enough to manage Olympiakos and nothing will change. But if Thrylos finally let him do his work, with time to make mistakes and improve then they will succeed.