Hellas Football

The Managerial Merry Go Round at Olympiakos By Stephen Kountourou After a year of instability and four managers in one season, Olympiakos is once again on the hunt for a coach who, it must be said, has a huge job to do. With names flying about everywhere right now, who is the right person to man steady the Olympiakos ship back to success in the port of Piraeus?  Gennaro Gattuso  Italian coach Gennaro Gattuso arguably has the most experience coaching big European clubs and is the closest to joining Thrylos at the time of writing. He most notably coached his former club AC Milan as well as Napoli where he won the Copa Italia and most recently at Spanish side Valencia. He is also the only manager on this list to have previously coached in Greece when he took charge of OFI Crete. Over his managerial career, the Italian has averaged just under a 43% win rate. Many have identified his strengths being the ability to maintain a cool head in the toughest of situations. He is also passi...

James Rodriguez: The Eight-Month Galactico   By Stephen Kountourou Another one bites the dust. After eight months in Piraeus, former Real Madrid midfielder James Rodriguez mutu ally terminated his contract with Olympiakos. Much like his former Madrid compatriot Marcelo, who also left the Greek champions prematurely, it marks the big ambitions but lack of planning and organisation from the people running the club behind the scenes.  Marcelo's talents were only fleetingly on display in Greece. For James on the other hand his star shone brighter for all to see in the red and white of Olympiakos. But in the end, even that ended quicker than maybe it should have, in a chaotic campaign for the champions. But what was the reason for James' departure? After the fanfare of Olympiakos signing Marcelo on transfer deadline day, it looked as though Thrylos had struck gold again with the Columbian international also joining. Initially, a loan from Qatari side Al-Rayyan SC the move was made ...

Luis Palma: The boy from Honduras By Nikolas Fil Luis Palma is a Honduran winger who plays for Aris in Greece. But what makes him so special causing clubs from all over Europe to want to sign him? Today we will analyze Luis Palma, and why he’s so important for the Yellow-Blacks. Vida days and the European opportunity. Palma is a 23 year old winger who started his career playing for Honduran club Vida’s academy til 2017, when he made his professional debut, in a 5-3 win over Honduras Progreso scoring the 3rd goal. In 2019 he joined Real Monarchs in the USL Championship on loan. There he scored 1 goal in 13 appearances, in a 3-1 loss away against San Antonio FC. Luis scored 23 goals in 70 appearances for Vida, before moving to Greece and Aris for 225.000 euros in January 2022.   Despite being linked with a move to Braga and Levante, Aris was the club which secured the signing of the talented winger, signing a 4.5 year deal on January 19th 2022. In his first season for “The God of War...

Qualifiers preview: Ireland By Nikolas Fil In this mini blog-series, we will analyze our opponents in this year’s qualifiers for a place in Euros 2024 in Germany.  Our first stop? The Republic of Ireland let’s go. The Republic of Ireland or more commonly known as Ireland, is located near the United Kingdom and despite their modest footballing history, Ireland has given the football world some great players, Roy Keane, Robbie Keane, Shay Given and of course Matt Doherty just to name a few. They have also participated in 3 World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 2002 reaching the Quarter finals in 1990 and the Round of 16, in 1994 and 2002. They participated in 3 Euros (1988, 2012 and 2016) reaching the Round of 16 in 2016, losing to France 2-1. Greece and Ireland have faced each other 3 times with Greece winning 2 games with the exact same score, 1-0, and drawing the other 0-0. This will be the first time they will face each other in a competitive game. Ireland’s coach| Stephen Kenny Kenny beg...

Green and yellow at the top with red shadowing close behind in the hot battle for the league title. The playoff and playout are in full swing.    It has been an intense few days, especially in the playoffs, where the focus is primarily directed for obvious reasons.   Hot derby meetings replace each other and the table remains historically tight.   The excitement is great and the undersigned summarizes below the last two rounds of the playoff and looks forward to this weekend's fourth round in the order, before there will be a short break due to Orthodox Easter celebrations.   Round 2 - Sunday 2 April The second round of the playoffs kicked off on Sunday at Leoforos Alexandras where Panathinaikos hosted Volos.   The meeting ended somewhat surprisingly goalless.    A heroically fighting Volos got a point from Athens after a fine effort from, among others, goalkeeper Boris Kleiman.   Israel saved a penalty in added time ...

Are the Greek Super League Playoffs Flawed?  By Stephen Kountourou  Ever since it came to fruition in 2019/20, the playoffs have been a part of the Greek Super League format whereby after 26 matches the league splits. The top six clubs play each other home and away, to decide the winner of the title and who plays in European competition the following season. The remaining eight teams go into the playouts, where they play each other only once and whoever finishes in the bottom two is relegated to Super League 2.  However many have criticised the playoff and playouts format, saying it was a pointless addition to the League season and with calls for a return to a normal league system that was in place previously. That is until this season. But even with the most anticipated playoffs today just beginning this does beg the question, are the playoffs flawed?  The big positive for the playoffs this season has certainly been the title race. Unlike previous seasons where the ...