Recently promoted Kavala’s impressive form in the Superleague has continued after they managed to get a late win against AEK. This win means that Kavala has managed to take points from each of the big three (a draw against Olympiakos in Karaiskaki and a home draw against PAO).

Though Kavala’s first goal came off of a penalty which was a clear dive and a few calls weren’t made in our favour, Kavala were clearly the better team. Even though we managed to hold on to possession for much of the game, we rarely managed to create any chances and most of our chances we did create came from free kicks or corners. Kavala was actually the exact opposite in fact. Every time they had the ball players would be making runs in every direction opening spaces and getting the ball dangerously close on a number of occasions.

Leonardo was terrible. I really hope we don’t see him play much more. I hate to say it, and I know he isn’t doing it on purpose, but he just can’t perform on the pitch. He does have some good ball control but his passes are absolutely terrible and ends up being an absolute waste of space on the pitch.

Gentzoglou was our best player yesterday, and while that wouldn’t necessarily mean much when he was surrounded by mediocre players at best he really was quite fantastic. Aside from scoring the goal for us (it seems our centrebacks are scoring more goals for us than our strikers) he made a critical and perfectly timed tackle from behind to stop the Kavala player from having an easy one on one with Saja (who was not playing his best today). The kid has massive potential and is improving each game (he is only 19 years old by the way).

Karabelas also had a good game again before having to come off for an injury and along with Gentzoglou he is improving every game.

As we are seeing every game now we missed some incredible chances but Kavala’s keeper was just to alert for us.

Its too bad really, I would have loved to see us beat Psomiadis’ team (just to remind you all, that is the a– h— that stole 12 million euros from us and should be in prison right now). Before the game he said he didn’t want to give AEK tickets because he was afraid we wouldn’t pay him back. He has a nerve, considering he is the reason we are where we are financially. In the end though (after Original threatened to buy regular tickets and sit with the Kavala fans) we finally got tickets for our supporters who made the long trip (over one thousand of them).

Really not much more can be said. We simply aren’t good enough. Though the referring was not the best, and though we missed some fantastic opportunities, Kavala were simply the better team.

We are still fifth, but that could change depending on what happens with the PAOK-Aris derby tonight.

Olympiakos were up 2-0 (away) against PAS Giannena but PAS managed to come from behind and ended up with a draw! Just one small thing that we can smile about this weekend

So, some news about the deal with Kozonis. During the week, someone (they are trying to find out who or at what level) released the papers to the press which stated all the details about the deal(the debts and any other information), even before Kozonis’ lawyers received it. Clearly, someone withing AEK is trying to prevent the deal from happening. Kozonis said he is still determined to get the team and make it a big team once again. Hopefully it will happen, but I won’t believe anything until I see it (though I still remain optimistic).

So, a two hour press conference was held by Thanopoulos today. Reporters said it was very sincere, “straight from the heart” kind of stuff. Clearly not saying what he is being told to say but rather what is true.

So, progress should be made soon with regards to Kozonis. A paper should be signed this weekend stating both sides are intending to go through with the deal (or something along those lines) and if all goes well (no arguments or hidden debts suddenly showing up) the transition will occur December 31st.

He said our debt is 30 million euros, and insists that is all, they are hiding nothing. Hopefully that is true.

He talked about some of the huge mistakes that were made under Demis, the biggest being getting rid of Ferrer. He wasn’t blaming him, simply saying that he had too much control (everyone let him do what he wanted since the rest of the shareholders knew little or nothing about football) for someone with little experience and knowledge in the area of running a large football team.

Thanopoulos will stay with the team until December 31st. Then, Kozonis will decided whether to keep him as an adviser or to let him go. I personally would like to see him stay. He’s an honest man who wants success for the club.

Some of the shareholders have given up their shares, including Pappas.

Alot was mentioned and discussed today, but those are just a few of the things said. Hopefully I can add more later.

Oh, one other thing. Thanopoulos said Kozonis loves AEK. He stays up late to watch the games and follows all the results. I really hope this is true. We need someone running the club who wants success for AEK.

So, a nice, relatively comfortable win on Monday brought us up from ninth to joint fifth.

We got the three points we so desperately needed, as well as a little bit of reassurance for the players and fans. Beating a team like Larissa with a score of 3-1 is always a nice thing. Sure, Larissa might not be at their best, but they are rarely an easy team to win against (I feel like I’ve said that many times already this season).

We went up first with an incredibly strong header from Majstorovic (it was from outside the small box and the Larissa keeper still couldn’t stop it even though he managed to get a hand to it!). This guy is really mastering the art of scoring from set pieces, great stuff to see.

Larissa tied it up late in the first half, forcing the team to head to the lockers with a sour mood from the supporters in the stands (only 8,000 showed up though, it was 4:45 on a Monday night and I had to leave as soon as I got home from school). I thought it was over then, up to then we really weren’t playing all that great. Our defence in particular was quite poor, making mistakes which almost led to goal (mostly up to their usual tricks of passing the ball back and controlling until an opponent got it and had a chance on goal). Saja wasn’t fantastic. I can’t blame him for the goal since it was a really well placed shot but he made some more poor clearances and passes, and his confidence really seems to be getting worse. Hopefully we’ll see an improvement.

Some key players really deserve credit for this game. Firstly, Karabelas. The kid has been steadily improving at a fast rate, and was MVP for the previous two games. This game he was terrific, he’s defending well, making good runs, and contributing a lot to the games overall now. Turns out Dusan knew what he wanted when we wanted to get Karabelas from Aris.

Nameth! He made all the difference when he came on. Aside from scoring the goal, he made a nice pass which almost led to another goal as soon as he came on. He played great, which was good to see since it seemed like he toned things down the previous games. It was also great to see Nemeth run right up to the fans when he scored, and without hesitation. It is well known how much he appreciates the fans but it feels great to see him celebrate with us, a really nice thing to see from a player on the team.

I really wasn’t impressed with Guerreiro. He started great when he first came to us but now, he does very little. He spent most of the time with the ball just wasting time. When its extra time thats fine, but not when there is still plenty of time to score one or even two more goals.

Every other player had a good game. Scocco, Araujo, Gentzoglou (his confidence his improving and he’s turning out to be a pretty solid player), Blanco (three goals in three games) as well as everyone else.

Overall, we played a much better second half. The pressure must have done good for our players, who began to attack and began controlling the game much more. Larissa still had the occasional chance but I began to feel more sure of our players as the game went on.

Still, it was not a fantastic win, but it’s exactly what we needed at this point, both for the players and the fans. Hopefully we will begin to see more confident results.

Manduca was MVP of the game.

One more note, another two posts in this game! That’s 13 this season (I believe including Europa League as well).

So, one point from a game where it won’t really do much to help us. In reality though, we could have come away with all three points had we managed to score one more of our chances, or had Saja not made a terrible mistake that the goalkeeper on my own amateur team would likely avoid.

Well, AEKBaltimore will watch the match on TV soon, since I believe he recorded it, and I’m not sure if AEKMAN74 watched as well. I watched from the stadium and have yet to see a highlights show so I can only comment on what I saw from my seats.

We got off to a dream start, literally. Actually, I didn’t imagine we would get a better start, I thought it was too good to be true. We scored the opener in the 15th second. Yes, thats rights, 15th second, not minute! A record for a Greek team in European competitions, and perhaps a record in the new Europa League.

We got off to a great start, but the game was quickly back in the balance with both teams having a few chances if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, we conceded next, after a mistake from Nsaliwa I believe (remember, we had Majstorovic out for this one), and we were again next to conceed after a poor clearance from Saja was controlled by a BATE player who scored an open net shot from 45 meters out.

The Originals starting singing chants against the players, but I was glad to see the rest of the stadium boo them, telling them to get out. Our players were trying, and Saja’s mistake was one that could happen to any keeper. We had no coach for this one, players were out, they were still holding in.

Second half came on and it was clear our players were going for nothing less than three points. By full time we had three posts but no goals from them.

Manduca scored before the half time mark. Other than that, I cant remember any other facts, hopefully one of our other two posters will have some more news to say, but I cant remember much else. My heart was going crazy with all the chances we missed, I couldnt keep track of what was happening.

So, as is typical with AEK, we blow an early 1-0 lead and end up with a draw (today, the match against PAS, the Cup Final, the match with BATE).

My stream today was poor quality, so I can’t comment as much as I could have. But basically what we saw throughout the match was that we had many chances, yet we only scored one of them.

We went up first after Manduca headed in the ball off of Karabelas’ cross. Saja saved an Ergotelis penalty, Ergotelis scored a goal, scored another and went up 2-1. While this was happening we were missing some of the easiest chances imaginable and we didn’t have a penalty scored. Late in the match though, we were awarded a questionable penalty (I personally don’t think it was a penalty but I wont complain since we should have had the penalty earlier on). Blanco easily scored this and we got away with a draw.

Ergotelis have never beaten us before this match, and that still remains true (we have won six games and tied four).

We are now in seventh with only three points separating us from third and only two separating us from a spot to qualify for Europe. Had we won today we might have been in fourth but as we all know, this is AEK that we love and follow so much. And as we also know, AEK never likes to do things the easy way.

Saja played today, made some fine saves to keep us in the game. Overall, we played a decent match, but really should have scored our chances. We were not great, but we saw moments of brilliant passing, but those moments were few. This is not the AEK we all want to see, the AEK we are used to seeing, not like the AEK of 2007-2008 (a team consisting of a Blanco that could score with ease, Liberopoulos, Ribo, Dellas, Zikos, the fantastic Papastatopoulos, Kallon, Edinho) that ended up with the highest scoring offense, the fewest conceding defence.

Things are a long way from being how we want them to be. A very long way.

The bus with the AEK players was attacked by AEK supporters that made the trip to Crete to watch the match. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some more attacks in Athens (the plane should be arriving soon if it hasn’t arrived already).

Oh well… we play Bate on Thursday, with basically no defence available, and Larissa on Monday (the match was postponed due to a Beyonce show).

Lets see what happens there, though I am not expecting much.

After a pretty good performance by AEK, we are up 1-0 from a Manduca header off of a fine cross from Karabelas. Some great chances for us, including one with Manduca and one with Blanco. Ergotelis started stronger but we picked up the tempo around the 20th minute and we are now dominating for the most part.

Also, Saja saved a penalty for Ergotelis!

We are officially a club in crisis.

A lackluster AEK missed chance after chance, and it was 0-0 after regular time.  Then, in the 14th minute of extra time, Thrasyvoulos nicked a goal and they held their lead through the rest of extra time.  That is it then.  We are out of the Greek Cup, felled by a Division B team.

Rumors out of Greece:

If Bajevic stays, five players won’t be playing anymore.

Multiple players are taking bribes.

Five fans met with the players and threatened then that the 200 fans that confronted the team tonight will have different intentions the next time they meet.

I don’t like threats and I don’t like fan violence, but I’m glad SOMEONE is doing SOMETHING.  What is wrong with these players?

Ok, to be honest, I was expecting a loss for AEK here. Aris were considered favorites for this game and I think that’s somewhat justified. Bearing that in mind, I’ll take a draw here. Its never easy to win away against Aris, even on a good day.

I wasn’t able to watch the match since it was satellite. Hopefully one of the other members or one of our regular comment posters managed to watch it so we can get some more feedback.

I’ll try to say what I can based on the highlights below and what I’ve read on other sights.

So, this game apparently saw two different AEK teams. One, in the first half, which was utterly terrible (as if AEK wasn’t actually on the pitch) and one in the second half, which some claim was the best AEK all season (fine, not exactly a difficult title to earn, but pleasing nonetheless).

Aris’ first goal came early, in the fifth minuet. As you can all see, a simple principle of football, defense, was not applied therefore giving Aris a very simple goal to score. A common feature of any amateur team’s defense is having someone on either post, ready to clear any balls near there. While this may not be applied so often at professional levels, it is still common sense to have an eye on both the near post as well as the far post. On the Aris corner, the whole right side of the box is empty except Abreu. With no pressure, he barely even had to move his head to tap the ball in the net.

Like with a goal scored by PAO against Larissa a few weeks back, simply having someone marking in that area would have avoided the goal entirely, or at least reduced the chances of it scoring.

Saja, as is clear in the video, played a good game. How some can be calling him to leave the team is something I cannot understand. The first goal at the BATE game also was not his fault. With those conditions, it is likely the same would have happened to any keeper.

So, basing on what I heard, Aris were pressuring quite a bit the first half, while AEK was doing little.

Things changed in the second. AEK were suddenly dominating on the pitch. We had a number of chances (including a post from Blanco) but just couldn’t get the ball in the net (for anyone who say the Roma match today, the exact same happened, chance after chance, but the ball would not make it between the posts).

Scocco scored our goal, but apparently refused to pass on a number of occasions which could have led to goals and instead decided to shoot. Scocco is a great player, got MVP of the week last week, but we have to see him play more with the team. We all know he has great technical abilities, but we must win the game as a team. With players like Nemeth and Blanco waiting to score, there is no reason for him to be ignoring them.

Araujo played well from what I heard, but other than that, everyone else played an average game. Not bad I suppose, at least nobody played a particularily poor game.

PAO beat PAOK 2-1. Normally I would be cheering for PAOK at this one, but right now, I want PAO to be at the top, or anyone really, except Oly.

Speaking of Oly, they barely got away with a win yesterday, at their own home against Ergotelis, who have been impressive so far. Ergotelis went up first, but Oly tied it. Ergotelis then had a few incredible chances to score and take the lead, but failed to so. In the mean time, Olympiakos was playing some of the most boring, unimpressive football I’ve seen in years. Of course, as is typical, lucky Oly, they got a fluke goal, which had Daskalakis been more prepared for would have saved with ease.

So, tomorrow, an announcement is expected with regards to Kozonis becoming the new Owner of PAE AEK! His representatives are in Athens now looking through the financial books, making sure there aren’t any suprises, and it everything goes well, the deal will be sealed. I am confident this will be good for AEK in the end.

Well, our night went from good to about as bad as it could get. As you can see from the post below we were up 1-0 at half time.

The second half started and early on Majstorovic gets his second yellow and is sent off and Bate tie the game. So, one of our key players is sent off, the pitch condition is deteriorating (and it was disgusting to begin with) and we were loosing the control over the game we had before.

We managed to continue fighting (at this point one point really wouldn’t have been bad at all) however we also continued to concede corners. Bate started pressuring and we couldn’t get good control over the game. Blanco was taken off and replaced with Makos. Makos had to cover right back as Jahic had to move to the center to cover the void left by Majstorovic.

Nemeth was left up front and had chance after chance, however the ref seemed determined to call him offside any time he had the ball (fine some of the calls were fair, but there were a few where there was no offsides at all) and refused to call any of the many fouls committed against him.

Eventually, Juanfran had to come off due to injury and was replaced by Karabelas.

As for the game in general, we saw some good things but lost control of the game as it went on, especially with Majstorovic being expelled. The team was clearly being frustrated by the ref, as well as Bajevic, who was eventually sent off.

We saw some good things from our players, especially Nsaliwa, but this is still not the AEK we all want. Bate were an average team at best. At one point in our beautiful history AEK was a team that was able to come back from 2-0 down, in Madrid and end up tying the game 2-2 (becoming the first team to ever do so), now we are struggling to beat poor quality sides from Belarus. Some things must change, especially our luck. Week in, week out, every year, luck does all it can to go against us. I dont exactly believe very much in luck and superstitions, but anyone who has been following AEK at all these past years would notice it must somehow play a part. To illustrate this point, consider the following:

-Had Everton won today, AEK would have still had decent chances of advancing. Instead, Benfica beat Everton 5-0, leaving us further behind.

-Our two centre backs today both got red cards, meaning they are suspended for one match. Our other centre backs are injured (Geraldo) or have just recovered from injury (Alexopoulos) and will not be ready to play anytime soon.

-Araujo is still suspended for a match, Georgeas is injured, and Koutromanos is severely injured and is out for the entire season. So, all three of our main right backs are unavailable for the next match.

-Juanfran received an injury today and might not be able to play next match.

Sp, essentially, we have no defence to field and will instead have to rely on other players from other positions. Of course, add to this the fact that nothing but wins will leave us with any chance of advancing and our future in Europa League this year looks grim. Not good news considering we already have no chance of winning the championship, or at least finishing high.

Not much else I can say right now, I just can’t believe what has happened to our club. I guess all we can do is continue supporting AEK and hope management (this new owner couldn’t come at a better time if he does) and the players do what they can.

45 minutes in and we’re leading this one 1-0! Blanco scored a penalty (certainly the correct call) to put us up and we now are in a great position and the win is definately possible.

Conditions are terrible in Minsk. It is extremely cold (near zero degrees celcius) and the pitch is extremely wet. Our players are sliding all over the place, which doesnt help players like Scocco.

We’re playing a very good game, compared to what we saw over the weekend. Our players are fighting hard, winning every ball, and are clearly in this for the win and nothing less. We’re working well together as a whole with pretty much everyone playing a role.

Our starting lineup was Saja, Jahic, Arce, Majstorovic, Juanfran, Kafes, Nsaliwa, Scocco, Nemeth, Blanco, and Manduca. Everyone is playing quite well, including Juanfran, but I really must point out Nsaliwa in particular. He hasn’t played in a while but he is playing extremely well at the moment. His tackles are incredible, ball control, through balls, he’s playing great generally. Nemeth is also playing well and had some great chances.

We are dominating possession and had many good chances. We have been caught on the counter attacks a couple of times and have given up some dangerous free kicks at times, but we’re holding on.

Now, time for the second half!