Hellas Football

Another stormy summer in Thessaloniki.   By Alain Anastasakis  It now sounds like a cliché. But PAOK did the best to stay on track. After the departure of Abel Ferreira on October 30, Pablo Garcia, one of the club's legends, was appointed manager. 'El Canario', who also led the academy for 4 years where he got extraordinary results with an impressive run of 3 years undefeated, is now in charge of the Senior squad.  Mid-season review and analysis Overview : Everything started with a great European campaign and prestigious victories over Besiktas then Benfica.  The Dikefalo had big hopes for this season. Unfortunately, the team missed out again at the last step with a loss against Krasnodar. The eternal curse some people would say, another proof of inexperience some others could tell. Following this disillusion, PAOK was back in Europa League with Granada, PSV and Omonia. The home draw and the away loss against Nicosia cost us qualification to the next round.  We ...

Consistent Aris? By Kostas Mantis Twelve games in and Aris sit 3 points off Olympiakos in second spot.  What we have seen thus far is a deep squad with quality planted all over the park.  Overview of squad. Finally, we don’t have to rely on one or two players like Fetfatzidis to hit the back of the net. Bruno Gama, Facundo Bertoglio, Daniel Mancini, Mateo Garcia, Dimitrios Manos & Xande Silva from West Ham is an example of the attacking depth now available for coach Mantzios. In the guts, Matilla, Sasha & Jeggo have been rock solid, but my belief is that one injury in this area could cause big headaches.  Now let’s analyse the defence, who have been super until now. However, over the past couple years this defence has lacked concentration & leaked goals at crucial times so there is doubt as to whether they can continue this form.  To be blunt, the success of this seasons campaign will come down to whether the defensive group can continue to play the way t...

Salvation Lies Within: The Relegation Round Midseason Report By Nick Gargano Thirteen matches down, thirteen matches left.  The regular season in Greece’s top flight football league is halfway over, and just like at the end of last year, the top six and bottom eight teams will be split into play-off and play-out rounds to decide their fate heading into next season.  If you’re at all familiar with what Greek football has looked like in recent years, you already know that  nothing  is ever certain.   Mid-table Clashes: Asteras, Volos, OFI, Atromitos, Giannina and Apollon  Each club occupying positions 5-11 has a legitimate shout at the play-off on paper, as the gap separating 5 and 11 is only six points.  Without much room for error, we should see the deeper teams with more proven attacks separate themselves from the pack.  Panathinaikos has hit its stride under new coach Laszlo Boloni and only looks poised to continue their upward trend after ...

Mid Season Review- Asteras Tripolis F.C. By Alexander Koutakos Asteras Tripolis have had an extravagant start of the season for their standards! They usually finish 8-11 in the Greek Super League table. However, at the moment the Arcadians sit in 6th place with 17 points, in a very congested super league table! During the summer, they had a somewhat quiet transfer window. Furthermore, the higher-ups of the club stayed the same and the recurring cycle of signing foreign players continued. In regards to the purchasing of foreign players, they managed to sign Gomez(RW- Argentina), Garcia(RB- Spain), Castano(CB- Spain) and a few more. Asteras’s Form Throughout The Season At the start of the season the Arcadians were in tremendous form. Furthermore, the Peloponnesian outfit won 4 out of their first 6 games. Those 4 wins were against Panathinaikos(1-0), Apollon Smyrni(5-1), Larissa(3-1) and OFI(1-0). However, since their win against OFI they have gone on a 7 game winless streak . That 7 game...

AEL Mid Season Review Well, here I am and where do I begin? For the biggest provincial club in Greece you would expect AEL to be fighting for Top 6. That has not been the case since earning promotion to the Super league in 2016, instead have been lurking around with relegation battlers with bunch of tourists taking to the field acting as if they care but fantasize sunbathing on the Greek islands. Yes, I am referring to foreign players. The transfers made in summer, once again, has been a repeat of every transfer window. The ins and outs always excessive, and in typical fashion presents no plan. Now, try construct an answer: How can the club afford to release so many players, who do not last their full contracts with high chances of unpaid wages resulting in temporary point deductions? This is one of the thousands of issues under the Alexis Kougias regime. Without a doubt, the 2020/2021 Super League season has been an absolute nightmare for AEL as I have already written off the season s...

Panathinaikos - Mid Season Review   By Antonios Theodosis After a summer full of changes that brought in new personnel both on the bench and on the pitch, the anticipation for Panathinaikos’ start to the 2020-2021 Super League season was quite high and yet the disastrous start to the season forced Panathinaikos owner Giannis Alafouzos to fire newly appointed manager Danny Poyatos.  After replacing Poyatos with Laszlo Boloni the Greens now sit in fifth place with eighteen points at the winter break. The Greens have amassed just five wins so far along with three draws and five losses, conceding twelve goals and scoring fourteen along the way.   At the midway point of the season Panathinaikos are in a much better spot than they were at the very beginning. At the start of the season, under Poyatos the team was not playing well at all and were utilizing an unbalanced 4-3-3 formation which saw talisman Carlitos playing out of position out wide on the left.  The cards were ...

Mid Season Review - Volos NFC and OFI FC By Nick Tsambouniaris VOLOS NFC Avoiding any signs of second season syndrome would have been the top priority for relative newcomers Volos NFC. The Thessaly-based outfit, with the controversial Achilleas Beos at the helm, have consolidated their top flight presence with a series of impressive performances throughout the 2020-21 season to date.  The primary aim of avoiding relegation appears to be a formality and a good run of form could even see the three year old club climb into the much-coveted top six. They currently sit in 7th spot on 16 points.  The likes of Sotiris Ninis, Nicolas Martinez and Amr Warda provide a level of Super League experience, having demonstrated their abilities at bigger clubs in the past.  Juan Jose Perea and particularly Anastasios Douvikas (who has an impressive 5 goals to his name in 13 appearances so far), enable them to have enough firepower up front to complement their free-flowing style of play....

PAS Giannina - Mid Season Review By Antonios Theodosis   After a sizeable portion of matches played and with the winter break now here, it is time to assess the performance of PAS Giannina in the Greek Super League so far this season. As things stand currently with the winter break now underway, Giannina are currently sitting in tenth spot in Greece’s top flight after thirteen matches played. The Epirote club have conceded seventeen goals so far and scored fifteen goals leaving them with a goal differential of negative two.   Overall I would say that PAS Giannina are a team that are on par with where they are supposed to be as a mid table Greek side. It is important to keep in mind the criteria in which I am basing this review on as clearly the club does not have the lucrative transfer budgets of bigger clubs such as Olympiakos or PAOK. Giannina have made things work with the resources available to them however, and it is refreshing to see the club not resort to tactics that e...

AEK Athens Mid-Season review 2020/21 By Greg Gavalas At the start of the season, I doubt many would have expected AEK’s mid-season review to look like it does, after a season of three coaches in 2019/20, AEK finished the season with Italian coach, Massimo Carrera, who came in and made good improvements to the team which saw AEK finish the season strong. Sadly, the momentum and expectation didn’t last long, and the 2020/21 season has sadly fallen by the wayside with AEK already out of Championship contention AGAIN before the Christmas and New Year’s break. Transfers alone, AEK fans had reason to be optimistic, the acquisition, I repeat, acquisition – not loans, of players like former Olympiakos striker, Karim Ansarifard, former PAOK midfielder, Yevgeniy Shankov, long sort after Swede, Muamer Tankovic and Damien Szymanski were signings not seen in a long time, AEK has gone many seasons looking at acquiring players on loan, so this was a nice change. Despite losing the Greek Cup final to ...

Olympiakos Mid Season Review   By Steve Kountourou As Christmas brings some comfort to all after an unthinkably hard year, and with it the new and hopefully better 2021, there has been one semblance of comfort and normality throughout this trying period and that has been football. Whether domestically or internationally, the beautiful game has brought its fair share of joy in a time where positivity is at its lowest. For Greece and the super league, the brief but much needed winter break has arrived, which gives sides a chance to rest their players, bring their injured back to full fitness and prepare for the upcoming challenges of the 2nd half of the season.  For Olympiakos this is no exception. The chance to win a consecutive league and cup double, along with the added European clash with PSV around the corner, there is much to prepare for. But for now I will be taking a look back at the first half of the season for the Greek Champions, how they performed in the Greek Super ...