Men's Football UEFA European Nations League 2024 - 2025

[Quasit 955]

Yeah, England going back to mediocrity from now. Useless.

[Makedonas 2,263]

1 hour ago, Quasit said:

Yeah, England going back to mediocrity from now. Useless.

I mean a former European champion beat a team that never won the Euros so I don't really understand how people are surprised by this result? 

[Makedonas 2,263]

We actually have a very good group of players on paper, of course not as good as England but we have underachieved a lot in the last decade (quite the opposite of the previous decade before that when many felt we overachieved). Jovanovic as our new manager has made a huge impact already, so nice to finally have someone who understands the Greek culture and language. Some of our previous failed managers in recent years who were not Greek seemed to only care about themselves and making a salary.

 

On a more serious note, this match took place less than 24 hours after it was announced Greek-English RB George Baldock was found dead inside the pool at his house in Athens. I was surprised he has not been called up to our national team since March but apparently he had some injury problems and is just now coming back to club football and that's why he was left off the squad. He just played in the big Greek derby for Panathinaikos against Olympiacos on Sunday. Had he been called up to the national team like he usually is, he would still be alive...

 

Kind of crazy that this happened the day before England vs Greece, the two countries he "belongs" to. He was born in England but has Greek ancestry and got Greek citizenship and started playing for our national team a couple years ago. They did a little tribute for him at the game which was nice. Some were complaining that the game should have been cancelled or postponed due to his death.

 

He actually played his entire career in England and just joined Panathinaikos for this season and played in 3 games. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be for him to play for a Greek club now and have the chance to connect with his Greek roots and learn the language especially since he is now on our national team. What a tragic turn of events...

[copravolley 644]

2 hours ago, Quasit said:

Yeah, England going back to mediocrity from now. Useless.

In the previous edition of the Nations League, they lost, for example, 0-4 at home to Hungary. It`s no coincidence that they are now playing in the 2nd division. However, they will certainly return to good form in the World Cup qualifiers and one of the seeded teams will have a problem if they draw England from the 3rd pot (I remind you that the seeding will be based only on this Nations League). Knowing our bad luck: Italy - drawn from the 1st pot will fall on England 

Edited October 10, 2024 by copravolley

[copravolley 644]

49 minutes ago, Makedonas said:

We actually have a very good group of players on paper, of course not as good as England but we have underachieved a lot in the last decade (quite the opposite of the previous decade before that when many felt we overachieved). Jovanovic as our new manager has made a huge impact already, so nice to finally have someone who understands the Greek culture and language. Some of our previous failed managers in recent years who were not Greek seemed to only care about themselves and making a salary.

 

On a more serious note, this match took place less than 24 hours after it was announced Greek-English RB George Baldock was found dead inside the pool at his house in Athens. I was surprised he has not been called up to our national team since March but apparently he had some injury problems and is just now coming back to club football and that's why he was left off the squad. He just played in the big Greek derby for Panathinaikos against Olympiacos on Sunday. Had he been called up to the national team like he usually is, he would still be alive...

 

Kind of crazy that this happened the day before England vs Greece, the two countries he "belongs" to. He was born in England but has Greek ancestry and got Greek citizenship and started playing for our national team a couple years ago. They did a little tribute for him at the game which was nice. Some were complaining that the game should have been cancelled or postponed due to his death.

 

He actually played his entire career in England and just joined Panathinaikos for this season and played in 3 games. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be for him to play for a Greek club now and have the chance to connect with his Greek roots and learn the language especially since he is now on our national team. What a tragic turn of events...

Euro 2004 was definitely above par, but the following years up to 2014, e.g. under Santos, showed that it wasn`t entirely a coincidence (not qualifying for the 2006 World Cup was, in turn, a result below par and this has evened out to some extent). In retrospect, I can write that Greece from the first decade of the 21st century wasn`t a much weaker team than current Italy, which also won Euro 2021 (I also consider this a result above par and some lucky).

Edited October 10, 2024 by copravolley

[Makedonas 2,263]

14 minutes ago, copravolley said:

Euro 2004 was definitely above par, but the following years up to 2014, e.g. under Santos, showed that it wasn`t entirely a coincidence (not qualifying for the 2006 World Cup was, in turn, a result below par and this has evened out to some extent). In retrospect, I can write that Greece from the first decade of the 21st century wasn`t a much weaker team than current Italy, which also won Euro 2021 (I also consider this a result above par and some lucky).

Yes, in 2004 we were very strong honestly, for example we had Zikos who played the full 90 mins of the Champions League final that year and didn't even get called up for the tournament because we had other better players. Also, back then the Greek league was much stronger than it is now, we had 3 clubs in the Champions League group stages that year for example, in addition to many other players at top European clubs (Karagounis-Inter Milan, Nikolaidis-Atletico Madrid, Dellas-Roma, Fyssas-Benfica, etc).

 

2006 we had a tough group also (no massive teams but a lot of solid teams and depth) and just missed out on the World Cup. We had Ukraine, Denmark, Turkey, plus Albania who historically don't like us so they had extra motivation against us. 

 

2008 to 2014 we were good and very consistent, we qualified for everything and almost always beat the teams we were supposed to beat, but rarely pulled off upset wins.

 

After 2014 we were pretty much in shambles, for a number of reasons I won't get into, but some of our results did not make sense because we had many players at top European clubs who consistently did well on a club level but when they all came together for the national team, we were horrible. On paper we had arguably a much stronger team than 2008 to 2014 but just could not get results. For example Sokratis, Manolas, Mitroglou, Samaris, Holebas, Torosidis, and K. Papadopoulos and Karnezis to a lesser extent. We still almost qualified for the 2018 World Cup but otherwise our results were very poor.

 

Now we seem to be doing well, even before Jovanovic we showed some good signs and came third in a very tough group for Euro 2024 qualifiers and had one bad game against Georgia (in which we still didn't concede any goals) which ruined our chances but after the first three Nations League games, I think it's time for us to finally believe in our national team again.

 

 

[Makedonas 2,263]

Our best and most creative player (Fortounis) moved to Saudi Arabia this year and is turning 32 in a few days so he is probably done with the national team. I know Jovanovic was talking to him last month about him coming back but it didn't happen I guess. We can blame our previous manager Poyet for that, he kicked off our best player and probably sleeps very well at night knowing our federation paid him a nice salary of 700.000 euro per year when all he did was offer us false hope and cause significant damage to our team, but what does he care, he is not Greek and we paid him a lot of money for doing a poor job so he is probably laughing at us.

 

Anyways we seem to be building a good team with depth now.

 

GK we have Vlachodimos who is better than most European national team keepers, though I wish he stayed at Benfica because he doesn't play at Newcastle this season. He's 30 which isn't old for a keeper but we have two very good young players, Mandas and Tzolakis who are both already getting very good experience and only 21-22 years old.

 

Our defense has always been very strong and still is, and we keep producing good young defenders so I don't think we will have to worry for many years.

 

Offensive players were always our issue especially in the last 10 years, but we have so much quality now even without Fortounis. Pavlidis who scored 2 goals today, Tzolis, Konstantelias, Douvikas, Ioannidis, and now we have a 17 yo Mouzakitis from Olympiacos who is a big talent and already playing in important games for club.

[Monzanator 5,127]

lost to 1-3 and well, Portugal could have scored at least two more

[Henry_Leon 1,738]

won in Belgium 1-0 (Tonali) and is qualified for quarterfinals

 

France drew with Israel and go through to quarterfinals

 

 

[Monzanator 5,127]

vs about to kick-off. No Lewandowski so it should be even more pathetic for us than usual