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..
Our fantastic start to 2016 got even better after we got an important three points away against in cold and wet Northern Greece. Conditions for the match were less than ideal as the rain that had fallen the previous couple of days meant the pitch was in terrible shape, but our players handled the situation very well. In fact, with how well they were moving the ball around at times I often forgot that there was even anything wrong with the pitch.
It was a good game from most of the team though there were certainly a few players who never really managed to get into the game. From what I could see, Djebbour especially stood out. From the moment he came on in the second half, I rarely saw him make any effort. I hardly even saw him run as he spent most of his time taking jogging slowly and idly around the pitch, almost as if he wasn’t even really aware of what was going on around him. He can play, we all know it, but the effort he gives, especially beside someone who never stops like Aravidis, is disappointing. I know he’s always been like this, but it seems to be getting worse, to the point where its really not worth playing him. I’d much rather we call up someone from our academy or make a cheap singing of another striker from the Superleague rather than play Djebbour when he’s being a spectator the way he is.
Another player who disappointed me yet again was Vargas. Sure he scored the goal, but I hardly see him contribute aside from scoring. When he has players like Simoes and Johansson around him, players who are constantly getting involved, he really has to carry his weight some more. Otherwise, it just ends up holding Simoes and Johansson back and ends up giving them one less option, options we desperately need when we play against a team that defends like PAS.
Defensively I thought we were mediocre today, not terrible but we certainly still allowed PAS far too much time near our goal. PAS do have a good team for sure, but we need to be able to hold back teams a lot better than we do. We need to be able to apply more pressure but without leaving ourselves too vulnerable, something we can’t quite do yet with the centre backs we have. It too often seems to be one or the other; either we apply some pressure and end up leaving ourselves vulnerable and open at the back, or we hold back but then end up giving our opposition too much time on the ball and too much time to form an attack. Hopefully we sign a more experienced centre back soon to help us a bit, its been far too long since we had players like Dellas or Kyrgiakos back there.
Players who stood for me were Johansson (is anybody surprised?), Simoes, and Barbosa, all players who seem to have settled very well into the positions Poyet is playing them in. However, most of my credit and praise has to go to Anestis. For the second game in a row he saved a penalty, a penalty which could have tied the game for PAS. He also managed to keep a clean sheet again (in fact, in the five games we’ve played in 2016, hes only conceeded once) and just generally had a solid game. I saw one corner where he seemed a bit shaky but otherwise, he did everything he had to which is all we can ask of him at this point. Without a doubt his confidence is skyrocketting and I can only hope he continues to keep it up. Of course, his real test will be next weekend against PAOK, a game we absolutely must win.
All in all it was a good performance. By no means was it perfect, but we did what we had to, getting the three points away at a difficult team. The three points meant even more after PAO dropped points at home to Panionios, drawing 0-0. That draw now means we are four points ahead with 36 points while PAO have 32. PAOK also have 32 (though they’ve also played a game less), so a win for us in the derby next weekend will mean we keep our distance between us and PAOK as well.
Unfortunately, our basketball team had a far more disappointing weekend. We played PAOK away, a game I was worried about. We’ve already beaten them this season, and I feel we have a slightly better team, but an away game against PAOK will never be easy.
The game started off well, almost too well. I woke up about a quarter of the way through the game to find that we were not only winning, but we were winning by 20 points. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I quickly got out of bed and set myself up with a stream in time to catch the third and fourth quarter. Unfortunately, it was then that things took a very quick turn for the worse. Just like that, PAOK had managed to close the gap. All of a sudden they were outplaying us, and we could hardly handle them. Too make things worse, our shooting (which was pretty good for the first two quarters) became terrible, with three pointer after three pointer missing the target. It was painful to watch, seeing us miss all these three pointers rather than just trying to go for the safer two pointers. I could quite tell if the team was told to go for three, or they just couldn’t break PAOK’s defense enough to be able to get close enough for any safe two pointers. Either way, it was not nice to watch. Sure enough, with just a couple minutes to go, PAOK managed to claw their way back into the lead for good, winning the game 79-75. We’re still in third place but with Aris’ loss and a win over PAOK, we would have been able to put some good distance between us fourth place. It was a terrible game to watch, but I’m hoping the team can learn something from it.
Really not sure where to start this one, but I guess Ill begin with Scocco transfer (though I’m sure most of you have heard by now). Yep, Nacho Scocco is no longer a player of AEK. And I really don’t know what to say about this… literally.
Three seasons he’s been with us and in during those three seasons he has left us with so many great memories: his two goals in the 4-4 Cup Final, his two goals against Oly to give us the win in Karaiskaki, his two goals (one of them being an outrageously beautiful shot, as were most of his goals) against Aris, his two goals against Vaslui, his fantastic shot against Panionios, a number of goals against PAO… some of his goals, a majority of them even, were game winners for us. To be honest, and I’m not simply saying this because he played for AEK, I think he was the best player in the league the past few seasons when he wanted to be. Unbelievable skills and technique, his fair share of assists, beautiful goals, he was a joy to watch. But, again, WHEN HE WANTED TO BE.
I’ve seen many AEK fans on the internet claim he was simply inconsistent as most footballers are. That, however, I cannot agree with. I loved the guy for everything he did for us, but to me, it is a fact that when there were no scouts watching or when the game wasn’t high profile, he simply didn’t show any motivation. There were so many games where he completely disappeared, where he simply refused to put any effort into the match, where he refused to assist his teamates on the pitch. And this is coming from someone who saw him live at every home game for his first two seasons with AEK. His body language for the majority of the matches he played for us suggest that he simply didn’t care about putting effort in that was required of him to help the team.
His off the pitch attitude was not much better at times, with him being extremely difficult to negotiate with whenever it came time to agreeing to new contracts. Fortunately he did agree to a “decent” contract (with a rather low sellout price) however I was never once convinced that a move to one of our rivals was ruled out of his mind.
So, I don’t know what to say about this transfer. I’m confident in saying we will not find a player like him no matter how hard we look (at least nobody within our budget or anything near it). He will not be replaced anytime soon. However, if it was up to me, I’d rather we have the team we had in the 2007-2008 season with Ribo, Zikos, Dellas, Libe, Papastathopoulos and co, a team that worked effectively as a unit, and give up Scocco, than have things the other way around. Obviously, this will never happen, but the point I’m trying to make is there have been better AEK teams before Scocco and there will certainly be better AEK teams after Scocco. Having said that though, after the departure of Djebbour (good riddance), then Blanco, and now Scocco… what attacking creativity will we have? Fine, Libe might be around for another year. But who else? Baha was a joke, and we don’t have one decent striker or attacker who is AEK material. Roger might have a good game occasionally, and Michel was solid though we probably wont even keep him. Scocco was without a doubt our most dangerous weapon, a weapon any superleague defense would fear, and now we have lost him and have no chance of replacing him. I’m not saying AEK will be far worse off without him, but without any immediate plans to boost our attack somewhat, we will only continue heading downhill as we have been for the past few seasons.
Having said that, this transfer was not something management could simply pass off. The nearly three million euros we gained from the transfer will certainly help things financially, at least for the time being.
Anyways, like I said, I don’t know what to say. Sure I would have liked to keep him, but I can’t imagine management passing up any offer near or over three million euros (though I think we deserve much more for him). He did say that if he ever returned to Greece, it would only be for AEK, so who knows what the future will bring… but really, who knows what the future will bring for AEK in general. Will we just end up like our basketball team? Its possible…
As of so far this summer, we have made three singings. A young centreback from Aris who is supposed to be very promising (we’ll see), Kontoes from Panionios (I’m happy with this, always liked him, and he even accepted lower wages at AEK than he was offered at Panionios, which is a nice slap to the face for Panionios and its supporters), and an attacker from Giannina, Salmas (haven’t seen much of him at all, but his goal, a fabulous one with an even better assist, his one of the possible votes for European goal of the season, so vote for it here!)
Decent singings for the future, or as possible bench players, but nothing to get excited about at all. They are Greek however, so they will likely respect the shirt they’re wearing a little more than a foreigner, but still… we need some better signings than this if we want to see an AEK that has a chance of making a difference in the league this season.
To end this post, I’d like to post some Scocco videos. I might have some negative opinions of him at times, but he has left me with some memories that I will simply never forget!
Yep, you guessed it, another derby on the first matchday of the season. And AEK will once again be one of the teams playing in the derby, just like last year. And who will our opponent be? Yep, its Olympiakos!
The game is still a while away but Im sure the likes of Bajevic, Blanco, Scocco, and Kyrgiakos are waiting for their revenge after our unfortunate loss in the Greek Cup Final of 2009. This should be an exciting game, as this fixture always proves to be.
The schedule for next season is up on Superleague Greece’s site. Our first fifteen games are as follows:
Match Round 1 AEK-Olympiakos
Match Round 2 Atromitos-AEK
Match Round 3 AEK-Iraklis
Match Round 4 Pas Giannina-AEK
Match Round 5 AEK-PAO
Match Round 6 Skoda Xanthi-AEK
Match Round 7 AEK-Panthrakikos
Match Round 8 Aris-AEK
Match Round 9 Ergotelis-AEK
Match Round 10 AEK-Larissa
Match Round 11 Kavala-AEK
Match Round 12 AEK-PAOK
Match Round 13 Panionios-AEK
Match Round 14 AEK-Levadeiakos
Match Round 15 Asteras Tripolis-AEK
The team written first is home, while the team written second is away. The matches for rounds 16-30 are in the same order but the home team will be away and the opposite way around.
All of our first three derbies (Oly,PAO,PAOK) are at home for the first round, so this should benefit us a little.
Link with information and the other first round fixtures here.
The new teams this year are Atromitos, Pas Giannina, and Kavala.
The only dates released so far are that the first games will be played on the 22nd and 23rd of August.
In other AEK news, Leonardo has been saying that he will quite possibly be playing at AEK next season. Lets just wait and hope that this is in fact true.
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