Blues check on Greek star

Chelsea are reported to be tracking Olympiakos ace Nery Alberto Castillo.

The Premiership champions are set to watch Castillo in action next week in the UEFA Champions League.

A Chelsea scout is set to take in Olympiakos' clash with Valencia on Tuesday with reports emanating from Greece suggesting Castillo is the focus of Chelsea's interest in the game.

The Blues are thought to have sent a representative to watch Olympiakos earlier this season and the Uruguayan caught their eye.

Castillo has enjoyed a fine start to the season for Olympiakos, netting four goals in three games and Chelsea are keen to keep tabs on the youngster.

He is highly-regarded at Olympiakos and is tipped for a big future in the game.

Chelsea are expected to monitor Castillo this year and they could make a move for him if he continues to impress.

There was a Chelsea scout in the Olympiacos - PAOK game too. Castillo scored in both, so i assume the scout left happy.

I'm quite impressed with Castillo, mainly in that he has really changed this year. Up to last year he was always accused of being immature and stupid. Every time he was challenged he reacted badly, he had fights with his teammates ets. This year he has been a model player and he has vastly improved on the pitch too.

I don't think Olympiacos will let him go easily.

So, since the last time i posted here PAO have sacked their coach (Backe) and were on the search for a replacement. Hector Couper, Dusan Bajevic and Radomir Antic were the three main candidates, but in the end Spanish coach Victor Munoz (former coach of Zaragoza and Villareal) was the chosen one.

PAO are playing really badly right now. IMO, the first 3 coaches (Couper, Bajevic and Antic) were better choices, but i guess i should wait and see what this guy can do.

Anyone from Spain have an opinion on Munoz?

Tomorrow is the day of the big derby: Panathinaikos vs Olympiakos.

We need to beat them if we want to have any chance of becoming champions this year. A draw wouldn't be disastrous, but it would do wonders for this newly-assembled team if they managed to beat our bitter rivals in front of 55,000 supporters.

Unfortunately, a very important player will be missing from our team: Andreas Ivanschitz, the Austrian. Without him in the team we'll have to play more conservatively, but i hope we can pull it off.

Victor Sanchez was immense tonight and helped us beat our bitter rivals, even if it was just 1-0 with an own goal! We're gaining ground now!

Greece has a professional league

Vardar is a professional club , but Panathinaikos , AEK , Olympiakos and others .... . I dont thik so

I didn't even know Vardar was a team from Skopje, i had to look it up.

Vardar was a big club but now is not . by the way Darko Pancev comes from Vardar and i think you know him very well , becouse of the match Red Star : Panatinaikos ( 1990 or 1991 ) he scored 2 goals . When he was going to the match, on macedonian - greek border on the greek side the greek autorities didn't want to let him trough becouse he was macedonian . but at the match he showed the greeks HOW TO PLAY REAL FOOTBALL and at the final of champion league he scored a goal and made Red Star europian champion ( the biggest football succed in yougoslavia was made by Darko Pancev )

Don't start that $hit here mates No room for politics here.

Mate , my brother told me to write this

It's OK. I seem to be the only person of Greek origin to post on this thread and i'm a Greek-Cypriot. The Greece - Macedonia (Greeks insist on calling you guys Skopje but i don't really care) feud doesn't really interest me. My only enemies are the Turks, but i try to avoid fights with them on message boards anyway. I don't see the point.

I wasn't making a rude comment earlier, i honestly hadn't heard of Vardar before.

No problem mate.

Should be a good move for Olympiakos. He spent 8 seasons there as a player so he will know the club very well.

I like Greece League because that's lot of Poles

Aigaleo - Pawel Kieszek, Wojciech Szymanek
Apollon - Maciej Murawski
Iraklis - Miroslaw Sznaucner
Olympiacos - Michal Zewlakow
PAOK - Marcin Mieciel
Skoda Xanthi - Arkadiusz Malarz, Tomasz Wisio, Emmanuel Olisadebe

What a colony

And I think all football fans from Greece remember Krzysztof Warzycha, Kazimierz Górski or Jacek Gmoch

Mieciel is on fire this year! We (Panathinaikos) were thinking of buying him but it never happened.

And yes, we all remember Warzycha and Gmoch, especially us Panathinaikos fans! Warzycha especially is a legend and one of the best scorers (if not THE best) in the history of the Greek football league.




BTW, on Sunday Panathinaikos narrowly beat Aegaleo 1-0, but what everyone is talking about is a young kid (not even 17 yet) that won the MVP award for this gameweek! Soteris Ninis is his name and Victor Munoz trusted him with a place in the starting XI and he played for the whole 90 minutes! He played as a right winger/midfielder and blew everyone away! Unfortunately, the press is already going wild with him and all us PAO fans are afraid they're going to ruin his career before it even starts.

Olympiacos have maintained their 100 percent home record in the Greek Ethniki Katigoria with a 1-0 win over Panionios.

The league leaders have won all nine of their games at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium so far this season, and extended that run thanks to Neri Alberto Castillo's fifth-minute strike.

Panathinaikos and AEK Athens are both six points behind the Red and Whites, but made sure that gap did not increase with wins over Ionikos and OFI Crete.

The Greens wrapped up a 4-0 win over rock-bottom Ionikos, Thanassis Tsigas' brace opening the scoring before an own goal from Giorgos Poulopoulos and a Sebastian Romero strike completed the rout.

AEK had to come from behind for their win, Goran Drulic having given Crete an early lead. But the home side fought back and goals from Daniel Tozser and substitute Leonidas Kampantais and a Marinho Wellington own goal secured the win.

Elsewhere, Iraklis grabbed a crucial 1-0 triumph over European hopefuls PAOK Salonika to move themselves away from the relegation zone, Marian Aliuta grabbing the only goal in the 64th minute.

Atromitos and Larissa played out a 2-2 draw, Francis Doe snatching a 90th-minute equaliser for Atromitos after Marco Foerster and Stathis Aloneftis had scored either side of Giorgos Korakis' strike.

Finally, Kerkyra recovered from going a goal down in the first minute to draw 1-1 with Aris Salonika, despite having a man sent off late on.

Aloneftis, the Larissa winger/striker, was supposed to be talking with QPR for a possible move but i'm not sure what happened with that.

It was the first time in a while that Panathinaikos won comfortably and once again we made good use of young talented Greek players (Ninis, Tsigkas, Leontiou etc). I'm happy with that, cause unless we build a new core for this team we ain't gonna challenge Olympiacos for the title.

We definitely need a couple of new defenders though. Lots of fans will be disappointed if we don't spend good money on our defence either now or in the summer.

The Athens derby is over and Panathinaikos is the winner. 1-4!

And here is the MVP of the match:



17-year-old Sotiris Ninis! He created 3 goals and scored one himself! The kid is brilliant and i hope he stays healthy for many years. Also, i hope no rich clubs take him from us in the next 1-2 years. We really need him.

Winning the league is practically out of the question for this season, but if we have any chance of a title challenge next year he is essential.