After yesterday’s 0- 0 draw between Panathinaikos and PAOK, AEK were once again presented with a golden opportunity to go 2nd in the playoffs and this time around, we were able to capitalize. Our performance today was definitely an improvement over what we saw last weekend during the game against Panathinaikos. Sure, OFI are the weakest of the teams we’ll face in the playoffs, but it was reassuring nonetheless to see us manage to put together a few significant attacks going forward. Livaja was on the score sheet once again following his well taken header to close out the first half, but it was Verde’s perfectly taken goal which was the one that received the most attention with some beautiful footwork followed topped off by a perfectly placed shot. Verde might not have been our top scorer this season but when he has scored, its often been a goal worth watching more than once.
The win today puts AEK as the sole occupant of 2nd place with 55 points – ahead of us are Olympiakos on 72 points while we are trailed by PAOK on 53 points. We’re clearly not out of the woods yet as it wouldn’t take much for us to be overtaken and from what I’ve heard and read following’s yesterday’s draw, PAOK looked more dangerous than the 0-0 scoreline would suggest. Thankfully, we seem to have put last week’s performance behind us and are heading in the right direction for the time being at least.
In other news, we made our first significant singing of the season with a three year deal with Bright Enobakhare. The 22 year old Nigerian striker was previously with Wolves but has spent much of his time on loan – can’t say I’m particularly familiar with him, but it seems like a promising singing and I’m glad he isn’t yet another player for us on loan.
Its been quite a while since I last posted here – to be honest, I haven’t really been able to watch any of our games this season and for the most part have only been following play-by-plays and radio broadcasts. That’s not to say a lot hasn’t happened since my last post though. No, we’re not champions; actually it wasn’t a great season at all truth be told, but there are some positives signs for the future of the club. To re-cap, here’s a summary of what’s happened so far this season until now:
After Kostenoglou took over for Cardoso, we did eventually sign a new coach: Italian Massimo Carrera. Not the most experienced coach we’ve seen, but that didn’t worry me. After all, we’ve had some fairly experienced coaches in the past who didn’t always amount to much. In either case, the players have said great things about his coaching style (and some awful things about Cardodo’s style since his departure). The team has, for the most part, played quite well under Carrera and I suspect that with a full summer to prepare and a few more signings, we could do good things with him. Since Carrera took over, in the league we won 9, drew 3, and lost 1; not amazing, but enough to secure our spot in 3rd place. Realistically we weren’t going to beat Olympiakos in the standings this season, though if we had Carrera from the start, we might have had a chance of finishing above PAOK.
One noteworthy singing during the Winter transfer window was the singing of Araujo on loan from Las Palmas. He’s been a solid player since he’s been back and its safe to say that most AEK fans will hope Melissanidis does what he can to sign him on for at least a few seasons.
The league has ended, with AEK in 3rd and 8 points behind PAOK. Having said that, PAOK, along with Xanthi, was handed a point deduction due to co-ownership rules between the two teams being broken. That means that PAOK drop to just 1 point above AEK which should put us in a good position to overtake them in the playoffs.
Speaking of playoffs, they begin next weekend with AEK facing Panathinaikos on the 15th of March.
Other playoffs news: I was just reading that Greece has put measures into place to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which include not allowing spectators to sporting events. This means that, unfortunately, there will be no fans in attendance for our first playoff game against Panathinaikos.
We’ve made some progress in the Cup, making it to the semi-finals so far and beating Aris 2-1 in the first leg. Shaky score going into the second leg, but we’ve already beaten them up north once this season and should have a good chance at doing enough to make it to the finals.
Some noteworthy basketball news, AEK legend Nikos Zisis has returned to the club after 15 years abroad. Hes made an impact since joining with some great performances until now and its clear he’ll still have more to give to the club.
Of course, its always worth showing some updated footage on the progress of our stadium. This video, shot yesterday, might be one of my favourites yet:
Lastly, I’d like to end on something that put a huge smile on my face. Stadium related again, this was some footage shot a few weeks ago when some supporters made their way into the stadium, and of course, started doing what they do best:
The improvement in fortunes under Kostenglou has continued with another 3 points following today’s win over Lamia, a win which brings us up to 5th place with 6 points (Olympiakos, PAOK, and Xanthi are all 3 for 3 so far).
Truth be told, it wasn’t a phenomenal game by any means, but it sounds like we did enough to control the match and make a couple of our chances count. From what I could make out on the radio, it seemed like though we managed to control the game for the most part, it was making any meaningful gain’s into Lamia’s box which we struggled with. Livaja stepped up when needed though, as he did last week, and was involved with both of our goals scored today (the first was a pass from Livaja which resulted in an own goal while the second was a Livaja free kick slotted into the net by Vranjes).
All in all a critical 3 points as we prepare for our critical test against PAOK in a couple week’s time. Before that though, we face Panaitolikos in Agrinio, a match which we really shouldn’t struggle with considering Panaitolikos currently sit second from last, one 0 points.
Progress on the stadium is continuing at a steady rate. This video shows some great aerial views over the stadium at sunrise this morning:
Its been a hectic couple of weeks for AEK, though that seems to be the norm these days. To summarize:
We were knocked out of Europa League after losing our first game to Trabzonspor in Athens, 2-3 (under Cardoso). By time the second leg came around, played in Turkey, Cardoso had been laid off and replaced by Kostenoglou and almost overnight the team was drastically improved. We played a great game in Turkey and won 0-2 with just one more goal being the difference between disqualification and advancing to the next round.
We lost our first League game at home to Xanthi (under Cardoso) though won our second game in Tripolis by a score of 2-3 (this time under Kostenoglou). As with our Europa League games, our performance against Tripolis with Kostenoglou in charge of the team was a drastic improvement over what we saw against Xanthi a week prior.
After the performances under Kostenoglou against Trabzonspor and Tripolis, management had rightfully felt that they saw enough to award the job to Kostenoglou and in my opinion, I think it was the right move to make. The improvement in quality of our play seemingly overnight was massive and on top of that, a number of players expressed their support for Kostenoglou, a noticeable difference from what we saw under Cardoso. I know it was only two games, but what I saw from the team against Tripolis was a team who played as if they really wanted to win. I was doubting this team going into the start of the season but if they continue to play as they did in the second leg against Trabzonspor and as they did over the weekend against Tripolis, we definitely have a shot of going up against PAOK and Olympiakos for the title (though I think on paper, Olympiakos will definitely remain favourites… I watched some of their Champions League qualifiers and I must say, they look particularly good this year).
Special mention to Livaja and his celebration on the second goal, reminicent of Nikloaidis’ celebrations in front of the Skepasti:
A 2-0 away win in our first Europa League qualifier, sounds like a pretty great way to start our season if you ask me. Considering this is the first competitive match with a new manager and a heap of new players, this was exactly the start we could have hoped for.
It’s far from over, but I’d say we’re in pretty good shape for making the next qualifying round. Though I didn’t watch the game and was only able to listen on the radio, it did sound like we were the stronger team overall. Having said that, it must be said that after watching the highlights, we did seem to have a few shaky moments in defense. All in all though that doesn’t have me too worried yet as I could easily put that down to the learning curve that our guys are almost definitely still experiencing.
Our starting XI contained a few familiar faces including Barkas, Svarnas, Hult, Simoes, Mantalos, and Klonaridis. The remainder of the players though were all players who recently joined (or-rejoined) us over the summer such as Paulinho, Vranjes, Simao, Verde, and Geraldes.
Mantalos was responsible for our first goal with a wonderfully chipped header out of reach of the keeper. The second goal came courtesy of Livaja (who also assisted on the first goal). Livaja actually came on as a sub to replaced Klonaridis and it clearly seemed to be the best move Cardoso could have made in that situation.
Our next match will be against Craiova in a week’s time, this time in Athens. If we are to make it through to the next round, which I imagine we will, we will face either Sparta Prague or Trabzonspor. While both teams are beatable, it’s fair to say they will both be considerably tougher challenges than what we faced today with Craiova.
Well its been quite a while since my last post and as would be expected by this point in the summer, quite a lot has happened. I suppose now would be as good a time as any to go over some of this summer’s developments up to this point:
A number of signings were made over the past few months, with some of the more notable ones listed below
Giorgos Athanasiadis, 26 year old keeper who joins AEK from Asteras Tripolis. At the moment we still have both Barkas and Tsitsontas on the squad so I assume Athanasiadis will be playing for the second keeper spot. He is a fairly respected keeper in Greece at the moment so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him snatch that second spot sooner or later
Paulinho, 28 year old right back who I assume will be Galo’s replacement.
Vranjes has returned to AEK, as a one year loan from Anderlecht. Of course I would have preferred a transfer rather than simply a loan, but I’ll take it. We all know what he brings to the team, not to mention the love he has for the club should certainly help motivate the other players around him too
David Simao, 29 year old midfielder joins us on a contract until 2022. Some of the notable clubs he’s played for in the past include Benfica and CSKA Sofia. I’ll admit I’m not especially familiar with him, but he seems to be a serious player with considerable experience so this should turn out to be a decent signing
Francisco Geraldes, 24 year old on loan from Sporting for the season. He’s been with Sporting for a while now but seems to have spent most of his career on loan to various clubs throughout Europe.
Milos Deletic, 25 year old forward who joins AEK on a contract until 2022. He’s probably the signing I’m most familiar with (aside from Vranjes) considering he’s spent the past three seasons with Larissa.
Daniele Verde, 23 year old forward who has also signed until 2022. He’s been with Roma since 2014 but like Geraldes has spent most of his career on loan. This signing seemed to drag on for a while so I was glad when it was finally a done deal. Hopefully all the back and forth turns out to be worth it…
Nelson Oliveira, 27 year old striker who has signed with us for two years. He was most recently with Norwich for the past three years and seemed to be a big part of their team for a while before seeming to have a falling out with management.
Aside from the signings, AEK also hired a new coach to replace Jimenez. Miguel Cardoso joined us at the end of May after spending last season managing Celta Vigo. He’s been in managerial positions since 1993, either as youth or assistant coaches, but only stepped up to head coach positions 2017. Way too early to tell what kind of an impact he’ll have with AEK, but he’ll have the chance to prove himself with AEK’s first competitive match of the season coming up in four day’s time against Romanian side Craiova.
Its looking like there’s a chance the match against Craiova, which will be our first Europa League qualifying match of the season, might be played in an empty stadium. Craiova’s match against Honved in the last round had to be halted following numerous fan incidents and I’m hearing that UEFA may be looking into possible punishments including a fan ban.
Aside from personnel changes, we of course unveiled new kits for this season earlier in the summer. I’m not thrilled with them, but they’re different and I guess they’re also not the worst I’ve seen:
Lastly, the progress on the stadium continues to move on at an impressive rate. This video, shot this morning, nicely shows some of the progress that’s been made on the first section of the roof:
I was in Greece for a couple weeks this summer with my father and naturally, the first thing we did our first day in Athens was head straight to Nea Filadelfia to check out the stadium with our own eyes. It was an incredible site to see, especially considering last time I was there, the place was still an empty dirt pit filled with overgrown weeds. Needless to say, its going to be quite the site once completed.
Its been a while since my last post (almost three months at this point), mostly due to the disappointing season we had this year. On one hand, it could have been worse: 3rd place and a trip to the Cup Final would actually be considered a hugely successful season for most teams. But when we finally won our first championship in years the previous season, hopes were high and expectations were that we’d at least be title contenders again and not 23 points off first place.
I guess it seemed clear from early on that this season would be a writeoff; we just didn’t have the same chemistry on the pitch as we did last season. The team never settled, nothing ever clicked, and whenever we’d have one good game we would follow it up with a handful of disappointing ones. I guess the belief over last summer was that we had a strong core and could afford to keep going with some of that core and a few mediocre additions. In reality, losing players like Araujo, Vranjes, Johansson, and Lazaros, while also bringing in a far less proven coach, was never going to work out particularly well.
Possibly the most disappointing of all though is the fact that the rest of the league was so weak. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Greek football succeed and improve but realistically, if we had the same team and manager as last season with another 1-2 solid additions, I’m pretty confident we would have been champions again. Sure, PAOK went undefeated, but I think that has less to do with them being a particularly strong team and more to do with the league overall being very poor (although to be fair to them, they were the most consistent team this season by far).
We did have a chance to salvage something from this season with last week’s Cup Final but I guess that just wasn’t meant to be. Honestly, I wasn’t as excited about the game as I would have been considering it was to be played in an empty stadium again. Oh well, maybe now that PAOK have finally won their double we can hear expect a little less complaining from them every time any little thing goes against them.
I guess I’m relieved now that the season is over at least. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect us to win every championship now that we finally won our first in so long last season. I would however at least like to see us content and to be honest, I’m anticipating better next season. I think Ouzounidis’ intentions were good (though sometimes his decisions left many of us wondering), but he just wasn’t able to get results from the team. Realistically, I don’t think anyone could have gotten much from this team this season. On paper and in reality, it just isn’t as strong a roster as we would have hoped for.
If we give Jimenez a proper pre-season, and provide him with some better options on the pitch, theres no reason we shouldn’t perform far better next season. Of course we don’t know whether PAO and Olympiakos will step up their game next season too but hey, if they do, I can’t complain. I’m not sure how many of you followed the Premier League but that title race was one that I’ll remember for years to come and if we can get a title race like that in Greece, then I’m all for a bit of competition.
Regardless of how next season turns out, we at least all have one thing to look forward to: Our stadium. I genuinely cannot believe the progress that is being made and as someone who was never lucky enough to watch a match in our original stadium in Nea Filadelfiea, seeing our new stadium take shape fills me with so much excitement for the future. In fact, I’ll be in Athens and just a few weeks time and it goes without saying that while I’m looking forward to the food, beaches, and scenery, I think seeing our stadium with my own eyes might just be the highlight of the trip.
I suppose before I discuss Jimenez’s return to AEK for a third stint, its worth backing up to our match against PAOK over the weekend since that was most likely the deciding factor which led to Ouzounidiz’s departure from the club.
Safe to say a 1-1 draw against PAOK, at home, wasn’t what any of us were hoping for. Not that it would have really mattered considering the title race is all but over but regardless, any opportunity to beat PAOK is one worth taking and the opportunity we were presented with on Sunday was as good as any. PAOK were forced to play over a half with a player less after a red card to Leo Jaba and for much of the second half they had no choice but to sit back and defend while we dictated the pace of the game. Despite this, we weren’t able to find a way to score until the 74th minute when Ponce scored yet again for AEK, salvaging a point for us but not much more.
As was often the case earlier in the season, Ouzounidis made some questionable calls which could very well have played a role in the final result. For example, Livaja was having a rather quiet game. Bakasetas on the other hand was playing quite well and was managing to get involved in a number of plays. For one reason or another though, Ouzounidis decided to sub off Bakasetas instead of Livaja despite the fact that the contribution from Bakasetas until then had been far more noticeable.
Unfortunately, too many of our games this season were overshadowed by poor decision making by Ouzounidis, even though he seemed to start figuring things out as the new year got started. The PAOK game suggested that hes still quite error prone and a change was most likely needed if we are to have any chance of at least winning the Cup (something which Jimenez succeeded at during his first stint).
Its hard to predict how much better off we’ll be with Jimenez in charge, but can it really get much worse? At least we know Jimenez has been able to get results in the past. The contract he will be singing is supposed to be a 1.5 year one, giving him the chance to start fresh again next season once this season comes to a close.
On top of the news of Jimenez’s return, it was also announced the Simoes had singed a new contract with AEK, a contract which sees him remain with the team until 2023. This is huge news as far as I’m concerned as we’ve really missed his contributions on the pitch lately. Hopefully he returns to the pitch with the same kind of performances as we were used to seeing from him. That, paired with the return of Jimenez, might just be what we need if we want to have a chance at winning the Cup.
Well, its been a while since I’ve posted anything (almost two months in fact) and I’ll be honest, a big reason for the lack of posts had to due with the disappointing way that this season started. Its one thing for a season to not go your way, but it was annoying to see considering the positive way we left off last season. We had a championship winning team, and a team that was successful in Europe, overall a team that was a great starting point for more success.
Instead, we got off to an awful first half of the season, and our Champions League campaign was about as embarrassing as it could have been. Nonetheless, that is all behind us and while the championship is all but out of reach for this season, it would be nice to see us at least end the second half of this season on a high. Thankfully, we’ve started the year off right, with a convincing 4-0 away win in Giannena (a stadium in which the wins never come easy) and then today’s 3-0 win over Asteras.
I missed the first 30 minutes of today’s game and just my luck, that was when all the goals were scored. What I managed to see though was fairly promising. I don’t want to read too much in to today’s result though since though we may have played alright, its worth noting that Asteras were pretty awful and not the Asteras team that I’m used to seeing. In either case, to start off the second half of the season with 7 goals for and none against is always a good sign. Funny thing is, we didn’t really end up changing the roster much over the break. We did sign Serbian midfielder Nenad Kristicic over the holidays and a few junior players, though our roster for the first two league games of 2019 remains pretty much unchanged compared to what we were used to seeing in the later part of 2018.
Maybe the holidays gave the player’s time to regroup, or maybe Marinos decided to try out some new things in training. Whatever the case, we seem to be able to find ways to score goals and get results now, something which we were struggling with coming into 2019.
Having said all that, we’re only two games into 2019 and we haven’t really played a stronger team yet. Next week’s game against Panionios will be a bit more of a challenge, but its the match against PAOK, February 3rd, where we’ll really see if things have changed for the better. PAOK’s good form has kept up so far after they’ve managed to start 2019 with two 3-0 victories, all this despite trading Prijovic.
Our win today sees us move into 3rd place, courtesy of Atromitos’ loss to Xanthi. Not that 3rd place is much consolation considering 2nd is still 6 points away and first is 14 points away..
I’m sure most AEK fans were like me, silently wishing this season wouldn’t get any worse. Well, it has and I don’t see any sign of it getting any better.
This weekend saw us lose 2-1 to Panaitolikos, a loss which dropped us down to 7th in the league. The loss also means we stay stuck on 17 points and after a quick glance at the table, its pretty alarming to see that we are almost as close points wise to last place Apollon as we are to 1st place PAOK. Not really where you expect to see last season’s Champions eh?
As if the loss wasn’t disappointing enough, we found out a few days later that Bakasetas, Lambropoulos, and Simoes are unlikely to feature in the roster any longer after they weren’t able to agree on new deals with the team. It seems as though Bakasetas and Lambropoulos, on top of not agreeing to a new contract, are also holding out for deals with teams outside of Greece. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the same be true for Simoes. Its disappointing, if nothing other than for the fact that all three players were so critical in our success over the last two seasons. At this point, we really don’t have the depth on our roster to be able to afford losing all three, so this will certainly be another blow to the team.
Well, as if the few days leading up to our Champions League clash with Ajax weren’t disappointing enough, all of the previous events were topped off with a 2-0 loss to Ajax in Athens. Yep, that’s yet another Champions League game that ended in a loss and at this rate, it looks like we won’t even manage to score a single point this season. Don’t get me wrong, we were never favourites in this group. But not even a single point? I wasn’t even expecting that…
Of course, everyone online is demanding that Ouzounidis be fired and while I don’t know if that will do any good at this point, its not surprising that we’ve reached that point. I mean, its not even Christmas and we’re already out of the Championship and European football, and the Cup is hardly and consolation considering the expectations that we had prior to the start of the season. But looking back, I guess I can’t say I’m all that surprised. What did we do during the off-season to improve the team? Realistically, not much at all. In fact, I think its quite clear now that we’ve taken a few steps back.
Ouzounidis wasn’t a bad move, at least I didn’t think so at the time, but its hard to replace a character and coach like Jimenez. And as for the players, well aside from losing some of the best players we had last season, all we did was add a few promising youngsters with little professional experience. So to be at the stage we’re at now, I guess nobody can really be surprised. Disappointed? Sure, but definitely not surprised.
Should we get rid of Ouzounidis now? I don’t know, its hard to know if its really worth it. We can’t get anything out of Europe now and I’d say the Championship is all but lost now. Honestly though I’d say for his own reputation he would be better off if he left. I still don’t think hes a bad coach, but he definitely wasn’t set up with a team to succeed this year. When you look at the way players like Simoes and Livaja have been playing this year, players who were amazing for us last year, its hard to really blame the coach. One thing worth keeping in mind though is that Jimenez is available again after being sacked early on by Las Palmas. Its probably too early to see him back with us for a third time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see him on the bench for us again at some point in the future.
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