Hellas Football

The PAO fans love hate relationship with Alafouzos By George Okay maybe its not a love relationship at all as if you go through social media, he is universally disliked by a large majority of PAO fans but is it all justified? We can all laugh at the old photo of him being linked with Olympiakos and hear fans of the club say they adamantly think he is out there to simply ruin the club but is that true? I don't think so.  Yes he comes from family money but he is a shrewd business man in his own right and a wealthy one at that and from what I know with wealthy people is they have huge egos and don't like being wrong.  Over a good while though Alafouzos trusted many people in football and they screwed him and the club of millions and millions. Id say that's pissed him off.. and rightly so.  So he had his strop, pissed off a lot of people and said he wanted out, but by then no buyers were willing to buy a club in debt so he took the steps of doing things on a tight budget and ...

Kastoria FC, The Little Team That Could By Stephen Kountourou When it comes to the beautiful game, everybody loves an underdog story. A small, unfamiliar side, going on an incredible run which ultimately leads glory for the unlikely heroes, with every natural loving to see the established giants beaten at their own game. This is just as prominent in cup competitions. With most formats consisting of two legged knockout rounds, on the path to the final, this gives smaller teams the chance to become giant killers against their much larger and historically successful opponents and their fans, some of their greatest memories that they can forever cherish. Examples range from, Wimbledon FC winning the FA Cup over giants Liverpool, FC Porto winning the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League and Greece upsetting the odds to win Euro 2004. These are just some of the greatest and most famous upsets in cup competitions. But when it comes to the Greek Cup, Greece's domestic cup competition, t...

Post USA 94 – Euro 96 Qualifying Part 2 By Greg Gavalas Game 6 – How things can change As we can appreciate today in 2020, Helsinki has never been a kind destination for the Ethniki, till this day, we have never won a game there and on June 11 1995 the Greek team travelled there for an important match with the home team who had improved by leaps and bounds since new manager, Jukka Ikalainen had taken over. With Russia and Scotland expected to win their respective matches, the new Greek team needed to play well and leave with points. The Piratiko would get off to a great start, great play from Kasapis on the left created a good cross for Demis Nikolaidis to score his first goal for Greece after just 6 minutes. The Ethniki was playing well but a Finish corner towards the end of half time was not dealt with well, from the scramble to clear the ball in front of goal, Tsalouhidis would foul the Finland player and a penalty was awarded. Ajax Amsterdam star, Jari Litmanen would ...

Post USA 94 – Euro 96 Qualifying Part 1 By Greg Gavalas Recently the story about the Ethniki and their run for the 1994 World Cup conjured huge interest and brought back many good and bad memories for Greeks all over the world, the conclusion came with many things to point at, one of those was the players picked and we dove into the players available at the time who I am sure would have done a better job than what ultimately was a humiliation on the grandest stage. On return to Greece, Alektas Panagoulias stepped down from the Ethniki coaching job for the last time, he receiving unprecedented backlash for the way he and the Greek Football Federation managed the whole World Cup campaign in the US, personally I think this was warranted, not only was the opportunity to showcase our real talent completely wasted but as Greeks we faced backlash and embarrassment for some time, especially from those who don’t follow Greek Football and our players. Kostas Polychroniou would be the ...