Panahaiki 1-3 AEK

Fifth win out of five games so far for AEK, with today’s win coming thanks to goals from D’Acol, Platellas, and Barbosa (I believe today’s goals from Platellas and Barbosa were their first league goals of the season). Decent performance from most players from what I read, with AEK365 giving particularly to Petravrakis, Cordero, Platellas, Barbosa, D’Acol, and Zoric.

Its a comfortable win, and five wins out of the first five games is always a good thing, though I was surprised when I realized how close the standings still are. Despite getting a perfect record so far, we’re only two points ahead of second place Hania, with 15 points, and that isn’t too comfortable. Its still early in the season however, and I have no reason to doubt the team.

I haven’t yet been able to find highlights of today’s goals yet, but I’ll have them posted as soon as I do.

Its worth pointing out that our basketball team’s winning streak with our new manager has continued to 3 out of 3 after today’s 96-73 win against Kollosos. I know its gonna be a while until our basketball team sees the kind of success it saw years ago, but staying competitive is a huge priority for us, and it looks like that’s what were starting to do again. All I want to see now is a win in a derby.

AEK 3-2 Panathinaikos … (It was only a friendly, but I’ll take it)

Due to all football games in all divisions being cancelled due to the events of the past two weeks, we had no official match to play last weekend. AEK took the advantage to play a friendly, and against Panthinaikos of all teams.

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t open to fans, but it was an impressive display from what I read. And really, friendly or not, a win against a first division club can surely only be good news. At one point we had a 2-0 lead, and while its unfortunate that we let Panathinakos draw level at 2-2, I’m happy that the team managed to hold on and score the winning goal.

To see amateur footage of the goals and some chances, see the videos at the bottom of this link.

Some more good news, this time from our Basketball club. We recently fired the coach we had previously due to a string of poor results, including a rather heavy defeat to Olympiakos. Our replacement, former AEK coach Dragan Sakota, has so far seemingly turned things around, landing two reassuring victories against Kifissia and Appollon Patras. Not the most impressive teams to win against by any means, but we’ve clearly taken steps in the right direction.

Another Scandal… What a Surprise

I say it all the time, but it really is a shame a country as beautiful as Greece is in the hands of such incompetent, corrupt, and embarrassing people.

I often find myself looking to the east and west of Greece, countries such as Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, and wish we didn’t have the people we did stopping us from competing with such nations. Don’t get me wrong, of course Italy, Turkey, and pretty much every other professional league is affected by the usual corrupt, self serving people, but I get the feeling things in Greece might be even more pathetic. The recent events, as reported by eKathimerini, are just another example of how far beyond saving the state of soccer in Greece is.

The events mentioned in the article occurred last week, when a refereeing official was attacked by some thugs, the usual people you see in Greece, roughing up anyone they feel like. A point that I couldn’t help but agree with from the article was the useless response from EPO. Scandal after scandal, attack after attack, accusation after accusation, and what does EPO do? Absolutely nothing, as usual, except suspend matches in all leagues. For years the same as been going on… accusations from a few certain individuals, violence in every level of Greek soccer, and yet never are the problems solved. Never does EPO actually take any decisive action to stop what is preventing soccer in the country from growing into something beautiful.

I can’t answer for certainty whether its just incompetence, or whether certain people prefer things the way they are (my money would be on both being key factors), but obviously with the people currently running things, nothing will ever change, but rather only get worse.

Just last week, we had Marinakis making completely non-based claims against Mellisanidis and other individuals and I couldn’t help wonder how someone like Marinakis could have the nerve to come out and make claims like that. But really, is it anything new? Unfortunately not, yet someone like that is still able to run what is supposed to be the biggest and most successful team in the country? Can anyone really blame me for not having any faith in the current system when the country’s biggest team is run by such a person?

Its depressing really. After 2004, the country had the chance to finally take some positive steps forward. We proved Greece is a nation which is capable of competing on any level, our youth teams consistently performed well on the European stage, yet what have we done since then?

What is most depressing though is, after a few weeks, this whole scandal will be tucked away until the next one (which will more than likely once again involve Marinakis in one way or another), and EPO will continue with its useless actions. Though its okay if the country continues to suffer, as long as one certain team continues to prosper I suppose? In Greece at least it is…

Some catching up…

I have some catching up to do since my last post, so I’ll start with our most recent match.

Over the weekend we played Acharnaikos, our fourth game of the championship so far. From the sounds of things there was some fan trouble (not quite sure if it was before the match, during it, or both) which resulted in some delays, though the match was eventually completed. We didn’t make it easy for ourselves, and it was an uncomfortably close result for us, but we ended up winning 2-1 thanks to two goals scored in extra time. Our two goals were scored were scored by D’Acol and Brecevic, both substitutions by Dellas late in the game. I’m not sure if Dellas was intentionally leaving two of our more effective offensive players until later in the game, but they were clearly two great choices by him.

Our effectiveness on headers this match was clearly pretty impressive and I must say I’m pretty happy with that. In fact, it seems like we’re quite solid with set plays generally this season, which is always a good thing. Considering we will certainly be one of the favorites and more feared teams in the league, I see us getting a number of fouls and free kicks near opposition goals, so it would only make sense to take advantage of that.

I really do envy those who were in the stands for the game. It would’ve been quite the moment when we scored not only the tying goal, but also the winning goal in extra time.

The next game to mention would be our second cup game of the season, this time a win against Iraklis Psachnon. With a scoreline of 3-0, its safe to say this was a far more comfortable win than our win against Acharnaikos over the weekend. The 3 points from the cup game just barely puts us first in our group, as we’re tied with Atromitos on pooints but ahead due to a better goal difference. What this means is that our progression to the next round pretty much comes down to our game with Atromitos. Depending on the situation with the other game, if Panthrakikos lose or draw against Iraklis Paschnon, all we will need against Atromitos would be a draw in order to advance. It won’t be easy, but I do actually believe we can get either a draw or a win against Atromitos. I’m looking forward to the match, not only because beating Atromitos would be pretty great, but because this will be a perfect match for us to see where we are as a team and where we need to improve.