Hellas Football

Ethniki assistant coach Michael Valkanis was good enough to give us some of his time and talk to us about his current role with the Ethniki, his upbringing, his experiences in life and football particularly in Greece and his memories of the Ethniki. Not many Greeks would know your story, can you share a little bit about yourself from your playing days, to how it come to pass that JVS was approached for the Ethniki and how did you get involved? From the age of 6, I played for South Melbourne Hellas in the Australian National Football Competition. When I look back now, I've been wearing the Hellas badge on my chest for a long time. I came up through the juniors to play for the senior team. It was a dream come true as a young Greek to play for Hellas. This team meant a lot to every Greek in Melbourne. It represented the Greek community, the brave migrants which left everything behind in their homeland, to make something of their lives on the other side of the world. ...

Weekend Derbies Showcase Worse Aspects of Greek Football By Nick Tsambouniaris Two blockbuster derbies and two major talking points, unfortunately occurrences which are all too familiar in Greek football. Aris became the first team to beat PAOK this season in an action-packed Macedonian derby. The football was good, the atmosphere was just as good. PAOK have not reached their full potential so far this season and a rampant Aris took full advantage. The hosts started the season slowly but are finding form. However, news emerged that a 28 year old Bulgarian man had passed away after the match. He was present at the Kleanthis Vikelidis as a fan of Botev Plovdiv, who enjoy a good relationship with Aris fans, in particular Super 3. This is common in the football culture in southern Europe. According to reports, a group of 15-20 PAOK fans confronted the man, who was in a smaller group. He was then run over by a car a day after the match itself. As someone who loves mo...

PAOK MID-SEASON REVIEW 2019/2020 By Alain Anastasakis After an horrible summer that started with Razvan Lucescu's unexpected departure and two eliminations in the European Cup, PAOK took the opportunity to focus purely on the league.  After Lucescu’s shock departure to Saudi Arabia 3 days after heading back to work, Ivan Savvidis decided to hire Abel Ferreira, giving him the mission to lead PAOK to the Champions League group stages. Unfortunately, and for reasons we won’t explain again, Ajax got the last word in the preliminary round. Disappointment was really huge but we could finally hope a decent campaign for Dikefale in Europa League. And cataclysm happened. The Invincibles, champions of Greece, were humiliated by the modest Slovan Bratislava. If the Ajax game can legitimately be considered as a fraud, this one was nothing but a collective failure. Europe dreams were already over for PAOK. OWNING THE TOP. Following the terrible start to the campaign, the Blac...

Olympiakos 2019-20 Midseason Review By Gavin Waymire With the first half of the 2019-20 season behind us, it is time to look back and see how the Reds have performed thus far. It has been a rather tumultuous first half of the season for the Erythrolefkoi, who after starting off in imperious form, find themselves once again looking up at their Northern rivals PAOK in the standings.  This coupled with a disappointing Champions League campaign full of missed chances, is certain to leave fans frustrated.  Pedro Martins stated to begin the season that the SuperLeague was his top priority, even placed ahead of European competition. With that in mind, to find ourselves in second at the break is a great disappointment. Our Champions league campaign was equally aggravating; Olympiakos generally performed much better than expectations, but struggled to earn the results reflective of their efforts.  At the time of writing Olympiakos seem to be struggling ...