International Break is over ; A preview of the next fixtures

By: Minas | October 15th, 2009

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International break is finally over. Greece have won Latvia (5-2) and Luxembourg (2-1), and ended second in their group. I have written in my previous post that I would like Latvia to defeat us, so that Otto Rehaggel gets sacked. “Unfortunately” we managed to win.

Watching me write negative comments about Greek national team all the time, you’d probably wonder why I watch Greece’s matches, why I care about the national team, why I care for Otto, etc.

Well, Otto does some strange things. One of them is that he decided to add Giourkas Seitaridis (our right defender – wing back ) to the squad. BUT : Giourkas was not match fit. Otto decided to include Giourkas to the starting eleven against Latvia. Moreover, he wasn’t substituted – he played at the whole match.

The result of these? Giourkas got injured today, at the training. *applause* He will probably not play against Kavala on Sunday. Otto could have easily selected Torosidis play as right defender and Spyropoulos and as a left defender.

Anyway, that’s enough about Otto and Greek national team. Nothing interesting has happened these days, so there isn’t anything interesting to write. I’ll write our following matches in Greek League and Europa League, until the match against Olympiakos.

18 October 2009 , Kavala vs Panathinaikos

It’s sure going to be difficult. Newly-promoted Kavala have made a great start in this season, and they are 6th. They also play nice football. However, I am optimistic, I think that we will win. Vyntra will probably play as a right defender. (instead of Giourkas)

22 October 2009 , Panathinaikos vs Sturm Graz

8 years have passed. Time for revenge, isn’t it? We lost twice against Sturm Graz in Champions League 2000/1 season. (1-2 at home, 2-0 away – in a group consisting of Manchester United, Valencia, Panathinaikos, Sturm Graz). I don’t know many things about Sturm, unfortunately. They are 4th in the Austrian Bundesliga. We must win this match if we want to qualify from the group stage.

25 October 2009 , Panathinaikos vs PAOK

The target of PAOK this season was to try to win the league. However, the season started bad for them ; they got disqualified from Europa League (1-1 on aggregate against Dutch team Heerenveen ), and club’s chairman, Theo Zagorakis , stepped down from his position.(Vryzas is the chairman now). They will probably play defensive, with counter attacks. Although it’s a derby, I think that we will win easily (last year we defeated them 3 times).

1 November 2009, Panathinaikos vs Panionios

Another one team that had many dreams at the start of the season. Unfortunately for Panionios, their dreams turned into nightmares – their target was to finish 5th and higher, but they have made a very bad start in this season. Their defense is very bad (even worse than ours , so imagine how bad their defense is), so I think that we will see many goals in this match.

5 November 2009, Sturm Graz vs Panathinaikos

Well, nothing to say here. Just that it’s a very important match and we should win, so that we progress to the first knockout round.

8 November 2009, Levadeiakos vs Panathinaikos

Hate this team. I wish they get relegated. Anyway ; they also haven’t made a great start in this season. Levadeiakos’ chairman deciced to sack the team’s coach, Vukotic, in the 4th fixture… Quique Hernandez is the club’s coach now. It’s a must-win.

22 November 2009 , Panathinaikos vs Asteras Tripolis

Asteras have made a very good start in this season, finding themselves on the 4th place. Last Saturday they lost at home against Ergotelis (2-4). At 22 November I don’t think that they will still be 4th, or even higher, but it’s sure going to be a difficult match. We should try to score early in this match, so that we can concentrate on the match against our beloved rivals.

Those are our next matches. On Saturday I will post the match preview against Kavala.

Bonus : Avraam Papadopoulos’ wonderful finish