Olympiakos v Burnley

[Edrahill]

Well i don t think i can afford coming over cause i just took my degree in a university and basic salary here in greece is about 500 euro. So i will possibly be in pub with friends drinking beer in the away match.
Now, about the match: First of all you will see a tremendous difference in the budgets of the two teams. Burnley around 185M and Olympiakos 80M. I would not say that these numbers show the truth. Premier League is a huge brand name so many players cost too much in comparison to other leagues, and especially the greek. If i remember well, Burnley bought a talented striker from second division for almost 15M. In our entire history we have never paid this amount of money for a single player. So I believe that many of our players would cost much more if they were playing in a better league.
Second, Olympiakos is the most succesful team in Greece with 44 championships. (44/81) Especially the last 20 years, we ve won 17. Last year, it was a catastrophy. It wasn t that we didn t win the championship and took the 3rd place, but the way we played was absolutely horrible. Boring football, horrible defence, players that didn t give a ...t. So the president (also owner of Nottingham Forest) went to the training facilities at end of the season and yelled at them for their performance and threatening them that he will send all of them off.. Well this summer, that was that happened. We changed almost the whole team. 16 transfers. New coach. And a much better performance and attacking football. The defence is poor but we just got our first team defender, and our defensive midfielder and center midfielder were transfered the last 10 days. So, to conclude if it was October, were the players were familiar one another and had some league games, i would give a 65% to Olympiakos cause of its experience in such type of games as we were playing in champions league for almost 25 years. But now, with so many new faces and almost no matches, i believe we have a 45-50% possibility.
Last but not least,for thos who ll travel here, BE CAREFUL!!! Olympiakos has many fans that are bad-tempered. For those who ll attend the match, don t drink too much before the match because the place where the Karaiskakis pitch is, has more than 400.000 fans and you may have a problem. And try to be all together while coming to the match.

To end,Karaiskakis is a great pitch and the atmosphere there will take you by surprice. You will really enjoy the match. Luckily for you, cause of summer, maybe it won t be full, but it would be a new experience for you. You 'll see

**Sorry for my English

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Hostile fans Edrahill? We have thousands of them, just 12 miles away at Ewood Park!

[oldcolner]

Interesting insight edra.
I’m sure you are right that your players are undervalued in the world stage and ours are overvalued. We only just managed to spend £15m again this year, which matches our transfer record for Chris Wood. Many of our players came for little money but have gradually increased in value the more PL games they played. Our keepers, full backs and Centre backs all cost little and have played together for several years so our defence is solid, scoring is our problem!
Our fans will be mostly long term supporters so they will be mostly old and cuddly! Not the sort to want to take on your ultras.
Your chairman must like making changes. Notts Forest have had 17 managers since 2011. Looks like your team is still shaping up and Fulham who we play next week are in the same boat having signed 12 new players.
Look forward to seeing how we do.
Will there be many fans coming over? Istanbul had none apart from club officials and families? Our ground is where we have played since 1992 so it’s old style. We will have to rip our old wooden seats in the away end out in case we get to the group stages and put plastic ones in!

[oldcolner]

Edra
Your owner seems to have had a few scrapes with the law. What’s happened about this from earlier this year?

Marinakis was charged with trafficking heroin by public prosecutor Irene Tziva. The accusations against Marinakis were described as "very serious charges" following a three-year investigation after the tanker Noor One was intercepted at the Greek port of Piraeus carrying 2.1 tonnes of heroin in 2014. He has also been charged with financing an illegal operation

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Tried to book two return flights to Athens for me and the lad from anywhere last night, £1,200 plus hotels and expenses seems a bit OTT to me! FANZONE it is!

[sinkov]

Tried to book two return flights to Athens for me and the lad from anywhere last night, £1,200 plus hotels and expenses seems a bit OTT to me! FANZONE it is!

Bloody hell BT, is somebody having a laugh. Not long since me and the missus had a week in Lanzarote, 4* hotel, balcony, sea view, all inclusive, for less than that.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Bloody hell BT, is somebody having a laugh. Not long since me and the missus had a week in Lanzarote, 4* hotel, balcony, sea view, all inclusive, for less than that.

On the back of that price sinkov, me and the wife have just booked 3 nights in Prague for the Christmas Markets, including flights and hotel with breakfast for less than £500.00!

[Edrahill]

Edra
Your owner seems to have had a few scrapes with the law. What’s happened about this from earlier this year?

Marinakis was charged with trafficking heroin by public prosecutor Irene Tziva. The accusations against Marinakis were described as "very serious charges" following a three-year investigation after the tanker Noor One was intercepted at the Greek port of Piraeus carrying 2.1 tonnes of heroin in 2014. He has also been charged with financing an illegal operation

This is a really long story and also difficult to explain in a forum. I 'll try my best. In order to understand the situation here, there are 4 big teams in Greek football. Olympiakos, PAOK(last 10 years), AEK and Panathinaikos. Each of them have as owners very wealthy guys with huge influence in Greek society and dark stories on the background. Marinakis is a shipping colossus with many companies, one of them in England's stock exchange, AEK's Melissanidis who has the main bet company, AEGEAN airlines and an oil company, Savvidis(PAOK owner with a huge influence on Putin) who has recently come to Greece and have many activities in economy,and Panathinaikos' Alafouzos who has one of the biggest Tv and Radio station in Greece. Marinakis bought Olympiakos, 10 years ago, and since then Olympiakos was really unbeatable winning 8 championships with Marinakis spending a huge amount of money bringing in many well-known and good players. In Greece, although we as people have many good characteristics(hospitality, joy, very good education, helpfullnes and much more) we have a huge flaw. Whenever sth bad happens it's always somebody else's fault. So, all the over-mentioned teams and their supporters claimed that Olympiakos gained the championships by binding referees and opposing teams. Marinakis was accused of many charges for fixed matches by the other owners(who openly declared their co-operation). In all of that 5 months Marinakis and Olympiakos was found innocent. This was the iincident in which Marinakis was accused of being leader of illegal operation, that fixed match. So he was found innocent on that.
Now about the trafficking incident: As I said these people have a huge influence in Greece. They openly support political groups. Savvidis openly suppot government while Marinakis and Alafouzos(whose tv and radio station is full of propaganda) is against the government and support the opposing political group. So many of these stories have been published. Marinakis trafficking, Savvidis accused as a weapon and ciggarete smuggler etc. No one knows if any of those accusations is based on true events and clues. But to understand why all those stories are suspicious, this Irene Tziva Is the sister in law of Panos Kammenos, one the government's leaders.

In my opinion , I believe that almost all of the world's most wealthy people have sth to do with illegal operations, so nothing shocks me..

[oldcolner]

Thanks edra
Very informative and interesting.
Are things improving in Greece economically now for ordinary people, it seemed dire 10 years ago.

[oldcolner]

Thanks edra
Are things improving in Greece economically now for ordinary people, it seemed dire 10 years ago.

BBC article suggests not

On Monday, Greece ends its third and final financial bailout programme, having received more than €300bn (£269bn; $342bn) over eight years.
The government and its European lenders are keen to paint the end of the last bailout as a good thing, having avoided a "Grexit" in which the country would have crashed out of the eurozone into unknown territory.
But for many Greeks - especially the young - the damage has already been done.

Greece's unemployment rate peaked at 27.5% in 2013 - but for those under 25, it was more than double that, at 58%.
Last year, more than four in every 10 young Greeks were still jobless.

Between 2008 and 2016 the country lost almost 4% of its citizens to emigration - more than 400,000 people. And while Greece didn't record the ages of those emigrating, the country is getting older.
The average (median) age has jumped by more than four years since 2008; and while those aged 20 to 39 used to make up 29% of the population, that's fallen to just 24%.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45207092