Olympiakos v Burnley

[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!

[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..

[Altobelli]

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!

1992 ?

[oldcolner]

1992 ?

As you will know 1882 was intended, must have big fingers!

[Edrahill]

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!

Well, you mentioned tthat your defence is your strong area and you have problems attacking. For Olympiakos is the exact opposite.We are very talented at attacking but our defence is very bad. Hopefully with our signings we'll bve much better as the days pass.
About our fans coming by, I will ensure you that they will be as many as the tickets we will be given. And almost 70% will be ultras. In almost all of our away games, in tv broadcasting you can only hear Olympiakos fans. We ara talking about 2hour non-stop singing. You can call us crazy..

PS. Marinakis bought Nottingham last year. So he is not to blame for all the coaches' changes Nottingham made

[sinkov]

Hi Edra, I'm intrigued that you were deducted 2 points last season, what was that for ?

Also I wonder what your first impressions of your new coach are, I know the league hasn't started yet, but you got past Lucerne easily enough. Will your club and fans give him time, or will they be on his back if he's not instantly successful ? Our fans can be impatient enough, but I would think expectation levels at your club far exceed ours. I would think 3rd place in the league is simply not acceptable, would that be the case ?
One thing is for certain, neither our fans, coaches or players will be under-estimating Olympiakos, your record at the top level of European football speaks for itself, and under-estimating opponents is not something we ever do anyway, Sean Dyche insists every opponent is treated with the utmost respect, it's one of the reasons he's been so succesful. I wouldn't take too much notice of the TM values of the respective clubs, they're a nonsense, apart from OC, no one takes them seriously.
I do like the fact that your stadium is named in honour of a Greek national hero, someone who fought and died for Greek independence. Sadly it could never happen in my country now, there is not the same respect for our country's history, we're more likely to end up with a stadium named after the local supermarket.

Who should we be looking out for in your team, who's going to provide the biggest threat ?

[Edrahill]

Hi Edra, I'm intrigued that you were deducted 2 points last season, what was that for ?

Also I wonder what your first impressions of your new coach are, I know the league hasn't started yet, but you got past Lucerne easily enough. Will your club and fans give him time, or will they be on his back if he's not instantly successful ? Our fans can be impatient enough, but I would think expectation levels at your club far exceed ours. I would think 3rd place in the league is simply not acceptable, would that be the case ?
One thing is for certain, neither our fans, coaches or players will be under-estimating Olympiakos, your record at the top level of European football speaks for itself, and under-estimating opponents is not something we ever do anyway, Sean Dyche insists every opponent is treated with the utmost respect, it's one of the reasons he's been so succesful. I wouldn't take too much notice of the TM values of the respective clubs, they're a nonsense, apart from OC, no one takes them seriously.
I do like the fact that your stadium is named in honour of a Greek national hero, someone who fought and died for Greek independence. Sadly it could never happen in my country now, there is not the same respect for our country's history, we're more likely to end up with a stadium named after the local supermarket.

Who should we be looking out for in your team, who's going to provide the biggest threat ?

Sorry for answering so late but I was busy yesterday. Yes,last year we were deducted 2 points. It was due to an incident that happened after the match with last year's champions AEK. We were 1-0 at 85th minute and we managed to lose 1-2 with two late game goals.After the match 20-25 furious fans went into pitch. I think there was no beating and only swearing happened.
Now, about our new coach: Personally I really like him. He is hard-worker spending much time for the team. Also, although we are a really new team with almost 20 transfers, we've witnessed some really good performances and beautiful( for a greek team) football. I hope we will give him some time but i think it would be difficult. There is a bad thing when you have won 18 out of 20 last championships. Our fans are like coddled children. They give no time to anyone. The only coach they ve had respect of wes Ernesto Valderde who was here for 3-4 years. We 've fired many coaches due to bad results or non-attractive football. Zardim (current Monaco coach) was fired mid-season, without losing any match (I think in 15 matches he had 13 wins and 2 draws) because we were playing defencively. Also Marco Silva received hard criticism.

To end I would say that the 3 attacking midfielders we have (Lazaros, Fortounis and Podence ) are the biggest threats. Very good technique. Especially Fortounis have >10 assists and goals every year.

[oldcolner]

Vydra now in the squad for Thursday

[Supersub6]

Thanks edrahill, that is very enlightening, although probably no different to the majority of countries in the world.
There is obviously a lot of jealousy involved between the four teams and their supporters and it would appear that any method anyone can use to discredit another team is the normal thing.
Isn't it strange that we, the normal football fan, can only support our own team and feed off whatever information we are given whether it is true or not.
Good luck this season, whatever happens in the matches over the next two Thursdays.

[sinkov]

"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."

I like the way leaving the eurozone and reverting to their own currency is described as 'crashing out and into unknown territory', typical BBC. Look at the result of remaining in the eurozone, horrendous unemployment figures, that looks like the mother of all economic crashes to me. On the other hand, the UK, in that unknown territory outside the eurozone, has no unemployment problem, as near to full employment as you're going to get.

It's the same nonsense as describing leaving the EU without a deal as 'crashing out'. We just revert to WTO rules and trade with the EU on the same basis as virtually every other country in the world. Where's the crash ?