We lost 2-1 to Benfica yesterday in a game which made no difference to either side (Bate beat Everton 1-0 away). The funny thing here, however, is despite this match meaning nothing to AEK (except a little pride) we saw some pleasing football from our players.
Benfica hit the post on a penalty early on which kept us in the game for quite a while but our luck didn’t last too long as Benfica scored two goals (the first one took a nasty bounce though Saja still should have been able to save it) without response from AEK. However, we kept the pressure on and at times we had total control of the match. This led to many chances including an agonizing post by Hersi and a missed one on one with Kafes. Eventually, one of our chances did make it in the net, with Blanco scoring the goal. It wasn’t anything special but at least it was a sing of the old Blanco we know (the one that would get the ball in the back of the net no matter what).
So, we got nothing from this game, but at least we saw some promising football. Whether we will keep up this football, however, is another question.
So, now for the worse news. Firstly, Goumas, one of the shareholders of AEK, gave up his shares to the Amateurs, which now means they have 44%! He also gave them 1.5 million euros to ensure that the players get paid.
Thanopoulos was insulted in the lack of trust they were showing towards him and has now resigned.
The players were all sick with a stomach virus (Makos was throwing up in the locker rooms at half time yesterday) and now it looks like many of them wont be able to play on Sunday against Tripolis. AEK is trying to get the match postpned so we will have to wait and see what happens there.
So, a pretty terrible week is coming to an end right before the holidays. Let’s see if things get any worse in the upcoming days.
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.
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.
AEK have been drawn in group I for the Europa League Group Stage along with Benfica, Everton, and BATE. Not a bad group I must say. We could have gotten a much more difficult but I believe we have a pretty good chance of advancing to the next round.
Benfica should be a tough opponent but they have not been at their best in recent years. I also see Everton giving us a hard time but I think if we continue with the form we have now plus a few more experienced signings, we could get past Everton as well. It will be no easy task though.
Panathinaikos will be playing Dinamo Bucuresti, Sturm, and Galatasaray. The Galatasaray against Pao fixture will definately be one of the highlights of the Group Stages.
