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.

The Greek "El Classico" is over and Panathinaikos has managed to beat Olympiacos yet again, this time in Piraeus. Olympiacos was better for most of the match, but some good goalkeeping and Salpiggides' perseverence paid off and we made it 0-1 on '90 (Salpi gave the assist to Papadopoulos and he had no problem scoring).





It's a shame that despite our double triumph over our hated rivals this season we still have practically no chance of winning the league, as we're trailing by 8 points. At least we've taken a huge step in securing the second spot which leads to the Champions League qualifiers.

Underdogs Larissa have shocked Panathinaikos by claiming a 2-1 victory over Victor Munez's team to lift the Greek Cup.

George Donis's Larissa, who are locked in a relegation battle in the Greek Super League, seized the trophy thanks to goals from Joszef Kozlei and Henri Adsue which sandwiched a Dimitrios Papadopoulos penalty for Panathinaikos.

The triumph is Larissa's second in the Greek Cup - the first having come against PAOK in the 1985 final which the Thessalia club won 4-1.

Panathinaikos have been very disappointing to watch these last 3 seasons. Crap, actually. And now we've managed to miss out on a top 2 finish for the second time in a row. Panathinaikos fans are definitely not happy and most are asking for the owners to give up the team to someone who cares more about it. That won't happen though. They're businessmen and they realise the importance of owning one of the top teams in Greece.

As for the cup final, Donis (the Larisa coach) was a Panathinaikos player in the mid 90s. In fact, he was instrumental in our success in 1996, both in Greece and the Champions League (we reached the semis that year). So, i'm glad for his success and i hope he manages to save Larissa from relegation.

Our coach, Munoz, is on his way out of the club. The fans aren't really demanding he is sacked cause they realise he tried to do his best in a difficult situation, but the owners have to sack someone and it's usually the coach that goes in these situations.

Most fans feel that only 2-3 players deserve to stay in the team and are really upset that most of the squad don't seem to respect the team's history and rarely play with passion. Personally, i've stopped watching for a while now, it's just too painful (not to mention boring).

I really hope something gels in this team next season because they have given us fans enough sorrows. I mean, imagine if in a league where only 2-3 teams traditionally win the championship (Panathinaikos, Olympiakos and to a lesser degree AEK), your biggest rival and sworn enemy (Olympiakos) manages to win the last 10 out of 11 titles. Would you take it lightly?

There used to be a time when the Greek league was more competitive and fun, these days it's by far one of the most boring leagues you can watch. There was a time (the 90s) when Panathinaikos used to be a respectable team in Europe and every coach who played against us in the CL knew that. These days we're as bad as Olympiakos, which is truly the worst team to ever play in Europe.

Let's hope for better days...

Heh, I like greece football specially the things that happens on the stands. It's nice.

Amazing though that former Panathinaikos coach Hans Backe got sacked after four games, haha.

So, how does it go for Mikael Nilsson, swedish national player?

And is Rivaldo for AEK athens?

Yes I'm a proud Greek and I go for Panathinaikos and at the moment we haven't got the kennel of Olympacos or AEK we'll finish 3rd again.

Kennel?

It's true that most reporters give Olympiacos and AEK more chances to win the league, but i think we could do better this time.

It's true that we haven't done anything to improve our LB (Fyssas is back, but imo he's too old to make the difference) and RB positions and we also haven't bought a tall CF which could cost us as we don't have enough tall guys to head the ball in, but we made some cheap but decent additions in other positions:

GK: Malarz (he seems much better than Galinovic and Ebede)
CB: Sarriegi and Enakarhire (+ Siontis)
DM: Mattos (seems like a quality player to me)
AM: Karagounis (one of the 2-3 guys Panathinaikos fans wanted to see return to the team... his passion and love for the team will help us a lot)
RM: Ninis (not a new player, but he didn't have a full season last year, while this season a lot is expected of him and i think he can deliver)

So don't give up just yet. I think we could play some good football.

Huge shame but very understandable to see the Start to the new season postponed due to the raging fires that have so far claimed 41 Greek lives. I have been following the results, moves and live games on the internet of Olympiacos for years now but didn't post because there were no other Greek fans on the forum until i realised Marios! I have been to Greece many times and have picked up countless replica shirts of Olympiacos and hope to g to a game very soon indeed. Big shame that the huge game between Olympi and Pana tomorrow, i was very much looking forward to watching the game and seeing how the new signings fair this season. I have been impressed with the signings of Raul Bravo and Darko Kovacevic in particular and i hope that Lomana LuaLua can show himself to be more of an asset in the Greek League than for Portsmouth in the Premiership. I am confident we can compete strongly once again this season but AEK offer a threat as always and people in my view are writing off Panathanikos far too easily indeed - a terrible thing to do and our record against them recently has not been great.





I really have high hopes for him this season and i really hope that he can make a positive impact this season

This thread needs more Panatha fans, but it's nice to see non-Greeks following our crappy little league. lol

Yeah, the matches have been postponed and the death toll is unfortunately rising (53 now). Not sure when the matches will be played. Even when the fires are under crontrol, there will probably be an official period of mourning (probably next weekend) so it might be a while.

Olympiacos has signed bigger names, but imo Panatha could be this season's surprise package. We're considered 3rd favourites behind the champions and AEK, but i think we have a pretty solid squad. We're still outsiders for the title, but i'm not as pessimistic as i was the last 2 seasons.

I think that really is what is needed to help try to boost the reputation of the League. 1 or 2 names like Raul Bravo, Kovacevic etc to stop and make other players think..... hang on a second, maybe there is more to this league than people think. I mean even though Panathanikos haven't achieved a great deal in recent seasons they are still regarded as a massive club as well as Olympiacos, and AEK's reputation is growing outside of Greece so i think finally the League is growing. I thought Panionios might do the same as they flirted briefly with the Uefa Cup a few years ago, but that was as far as it got.

That seems to be the problem. Outside of Greece, sadly only Olympiacos, Panathanikos and now AEK are the only real clubs known from the country. Clubs like PAOK, Larissa, OFI, Aris etc just have no reputation whatsoever which makes people instantly dismiss the League as poor.

It wasn't always like that though. In the 70s and 80s teams like PAOK, Aris and Larissa were among the best in Greece, but the Athens clubs have more money so they've managed to survive and dominate the 90s and 00s.

To be honest, i watch the league and i think it's poor. And i'm not just saying that as a Panathinaikos fan, whose team seems past its old glories. The matches are not very interesting to watch and the teams are pretty weak overall. Hopefully, we'll see some better matches this season, but i'm not holding my breath.

As for European recognition, in the 90s and early 00s you could always count on Panathinaikos to do well in Europe (we reached the semis and quarters of the CL), but Olympiacos and AEK seem unable to copy our success. On the one hand i don't want to see them do well, but on the other hand their poor European performances are costing Greece valuable points. As for the smaller teams, i don't think they have what it takes to have a decent run in the UEFA Cup.

I agree. I watch a fair amount of Greek Football and it is not of a high standard - hence the lack of quality signings and Champions League runs in recent years.

When d you think the League will begin then?

And do you support the Cypriot national team mate?

If so being a Pana fan what are your opinions on the Legendary Michalis Konstantinou?!

I think the league should begin on the 8th of September at the latest, depending when the fires are under control and they don't keep finding burn victims.

Of course i support the Cypriot national team, but i also support the Greek team.

Konstantinou is hated by Panatha's fans because he declared his love and loyalty to the club saying he would sign a new contract and at the last minute left us to go to Olympiakos.

He's past his best though, so i don't really care about him.

Yeah i thought he mustn't be a popular figure after his departure. Is the same feeling felt from your fans towards Nikopolidis?

We hate him too, yes. But at least he provides some comic relief with his blunders.

He can be unreliable.