Panionios is currently playing OFK Belgrade in the second round of the Intertoto Cup. Djebbour, Koilaras, and Berthe are all out for this match, but they should still win. Its currently 0-0.

 

Panionios beat OFK 3-1 and won 3-2 on aggregate. They advance to play Napoli who will probably kick their ass as Nionios' defence and GKing sucks long and hard.

 

Panionios beat OFK 3-1 and won 3-2 on aggregate. They advance to play Napoli who will probably kick their ass as Nionios' defence and GKing sucks long and hard.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

BRING ON THE MAKARONATHES !!!!!!

 

Decent win by Panionios, was a pretty close match though and a dodgy penalty decided it. Good luck in the third round though and good luck to all Greek teams in Europe this season! :thumbsup:

 

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/fixturesresults/round=15274/match=303502/report=rp.html

Panathinaikos power past Dinamo
Wednesday 30 July 2008

Henk ten Cate began his reign as coach in earnest as Panathinaikos FC eased to a 3-0 UEFA Champions League qualifying win against FC Dinamo Tbilisi in front of a sizeable crowd in Athens.

Ninis sets tone
Teenage prodigy Sotiris Ninis set the tone with barely 20 seconds played, forcing visiting goalkeeper Didier Ovono into a save with a fierce drive from distance. The Dinamo Tbilisi No1 was finally beaten with 23 minutes played when Andreas Ivanschitz tucked in a pass from Dimitris Salpingidis. Provider would turn scorer a minute before the break, before Salpingidis also completed the victory in the 74th minute with another neat finish to cap a decent night's work for Ten Cate's men.

Perfect timing
Austrian international Ivanschitz had already signalled his intent with a fifth-minute free-kick saved by Ovono before opening the scoring with his left foot. Having played a major role in that goal, Salpingidis drilled an effort against the crossbar on 40 minutes. The Greek international was not to be denied, though, and he was soon arriving near the penalty spot to convert Ivanschitz's cross from the left.

Wasted chances
The Georgian champions refused to buckle, and would perhaps still be in contention going into next week's second leg on home soil had substitute Ilija Spasojevic not passed up two straightforward opportunities to halve the deficit on 51 and 71 minutes. Instead, it was the Greens who would strike again as Salpingidis collected the ball from an Ovono save and promptly dispatched it beyond the keeper.

 

Good performance at the first half with most of the attacks coming from the wings, with Ivanschitz and Salpigidis doing pretty well. At the second half Ten Cate changed Mattos and played with one defensive midfielder which somewhat cost the control in the midfield and Dinamo made one or two chances for goal. Panathinaikos started the game using none of the new signings with Rukavina, Gabriel and Christodoulopoulos all coming on in the second half.

 

So the draw is done and we have:

Panathinaikos – Sparta Prague
Olympiakos – Anorthosis

Panathinaikos will travel once again in Czech Republic to play against Sparta. Panathinaikos faced both Slavia and Sparta in their 2001/02 Champions League run when reached the quarter finals and won all 4 games against them. In 2002/03 Panathinaikos faced Slovan Liberec in the 3rd round of the UEFA Cup and also passed through in a another run till the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup this time.

Olympiakos will face Anorthosis in a rematch of the 1998/99 game of Champions League qualifiers. Olympiakos made it to the groups back then reaching the quarter finals.

 

Olympiakos will face Anorthosis in a rematch of the 1998/99 game of Champions League qualifiers. Olympiakos made it to the groups back then reaching the quarter finals.

not so fast.
of course a 0-3 for rapid vienna seems somewhat a miracle to overcome against anorthosis on wednesday evening, i wouldn't write them off, yet.

just in case rapid really makes it, it would be cracking games against olympiakos since the rapid ultras have a close friendship with gate 13.
some pao guys even came to cyprus for the first leg i've been told by a friend who was at the away game last week.
here in vienna papers are digging up rapid's sensational comeback from 1985 when they managed to beat dynamo dresden 4-0 after losing the first leg in germany 0-3.
hope history repeats even though it most likely won't.

good luck pao for your european campaign.

 

AEK have drawn Omonia.

Aris have drawn Slaven Koprivnica (?) of Croatia.

APOEL have drawn Red Star.

 

Wow mate I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bash Rapid or something. It just the fact that is very difficult for Rapid to qualify after such a bad result. I support Rapid anyway and I wish you guys all the luck.:thumbsup:

 

no worries.
i'm not a fan of rapid or austrian football in general, just happen to have a lot of friends who support them so, of course, i'll cross my fingers for them.

is ivanschitz in the starting XI most of the time and how does he play?
during the euro he was quite dissapointing for the national team.

 

Yes Andreas was very disappointing during the EURO, but that was actually good for us because we bought him pretty cheap. Ivancshitz is a quality player and had a good season last year in Greece. Peseiro (our coach last year) was a huge fan of rotation so we didn’t really have a starting eleven lineup. The problem with Ivanschitz is that, although he is quality, he’s somewhat inconsistent in his performances, he could have a fantastic game in a match and be invisible in the next one.

I don’t know if Ten Cate is going to use him as a starter, (he used at the game against Dinamo though) I don’t even know if there are going to be any starters in the midfield for Panathinaikos this season. Ten Cate uses a 4-2-3-1 formation with Andreas playing in the -3- of that, where the competition is pretty tough with Karagounis, Ninis, Salpingidis Rukavina, Christodoulopoulos also competing for 3 places. The advantage for Ivanschitz is that he’s the only left footed one.

 

PAO will beat Sparta in the 3rd round and im also sad to say.... Theyll win the league.

Ten Cate is a very very good coach.

 

Anorthosis 3 - 0 Olympiakos :howler:

This just proves that, once again, despite all their money, despite all their paper championships, despite all their 'big name' South American signings, the Xartia just cant win a game without blatant referee favoritism.

In all honesty, a team filled with average mid table Greek league players, a team that would most likely finish between 7 and 10th in the league, managed to school our so called 'champion'. What is even more hilarious is that the game was not even close. Aside from Mitroglou's missed penalty OSFP has no real clear cut chance at scoring, while, on the other hand, every time AF pressured the Xartia's defense, it looked about to collapse. Dellas was massive at the back, as was Beqaj, while in attack Sosin was fantastic (he made the cross that led to Stoltidis' own goal after deeking out Leonardo, and he headed in the second).

I am truly glad for Famagusta as they now have a great chance at becoming the first Cypriot team in the CL Group stage.

 

I normally support Greek teams in Europe but this is one of those rare ocassions where I was delighted that Olympiakos got killed by a small team, coached by a former AEK player, after the way they won the Greek championship in court and screwed over AEK who won the championship on the field.

The Court Champions cant win a game without having the referees and league officials in their hip pockets. If Anorthosis was a team playing in the Greek League, Anorthosis would have definitely not won this game especially with a 3-0 score

All 3 goals by Anorthosis against Olympiakos including the missed penalty by Olympiakos

http://www.goal4replay.net/VideoWatchF.asp?ID=15744&Ln=En

All 3 goals by Anorthosis against Olympiakos including the missed penalty by Olympiakos

http://www.goal4replay.net/VideoWatchF.asp?ID=15744&Ln=En

 

PAO also just beat Sparta 2-1 in Prague. Watched a little bit of the second half but got board (the game sucked) and decided to write the above.

 

Anorthosis has been getting better year after year I've noticed. I saw Dellas joined them too. Wasn't Timur Ketsbaia? a player/slash coach a few years back. I think I remember him against Trabzon playing one half coaching the other half, decent player too.

 

Ketsbaia is still coach.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anorthosis have been knocking on the CL door for a number of years now and its nice to see they will get their chance at the expense of the court 'champions'.

 

Unless Anorthosis collapse in the return game, it will be the best performance ever for a Cyptiot team. They might not do well in the group stages, but financially it will be a gold mine for Anorthosis

 

I'm not sure about that. The % of money clubs/countries get are decided by their nation's market share in TV revenue. Greece gets around 30million Euros, for example, which is divided then by the ammount of teams we have in the group stage. If AF make it Cyprus would be the smallest market to ever have a CL group stage participant as the country has only 700,000 people living there. They should get a couple of million though, which would be great for improving their squad.

That said AEK, Aris, APOLE, and Omonia all play today.

Concerning the AEK - Omonia match, reports state that Donis will be playing a 4-3-3 that would look something like this:

------------------Saja
Ramos--Alexopoulos--Majstirovic--Juanfran
----Kafes--------Rikka--------Rivaldo
--Scocco-------Blanco---------Zorbas

Bench: Arambatzis, Georgeas, Hetemaj, Pliatsikas, Lagos, Burns, & Pavlis.
*Basinas and Kyrgiakos are not match fit yet while Edinho, Geraldo, Manduca, and Macho are all injured.

Reports for Omonia state that they will be playing a 4-2-3-1, essentially cloging the midfield. I dont know much about their club but i'm going to go ahead and predict that AEK will take this 2-0.

 

I'm not sure about that. The % of money clubs/countries get are decided by their nation's market share in TV revenue. Greece gets around 30million Euros, for example, which is divided then by the ammount of teams we have in the group stage. If AF make it Cyprus would be the smallest market to ever have a CL group stage participant as the country has only 700,000 people living there. They should get a couple of million though, which would be great for improving their squad.

CL money is paid on thress basis:

1 qualifying for the group stages, this is a fixed amount for every club
2. points gained in the group stages
3. tv/ marketing share

I do not envisage Anorthosis earning much in the way of points, but 1-2million euros fro qualifying for the group stage, and then 1-2millions euros for tv/makreting, this is big money in Cyprus, where most transfers are free and most clubs cannot afford the wages they pay their players. 4million euros will pu Anorthosis on a different level to Omonia, APOEL and Appollona.

 

AEK lost at home to Omonoia 1-0. Just as bad as Olympiakos...

 

Uh, no.

With 2 more weeks and Basinas and Kyrgiakos in the lineup 1-0 can be overturned.

3-0 on the otherhand without copping a goal is not gonna happen for OSFP.

 

Anorthosis already are at another level.

Anyway concerning the AEK - Omonia match

Omonia essentially played 9 men back in defence and relied mostly on longballs to their loan striker (Cafu), who stood in line with our CB's and would try and outrun them for the ball. That said it mostly failed and Omonia were incredibly lucky to score off Majstorovic's nice **** up. AEK dominated possession and shots, and should have scored 2-3. With Basinas and Kyrgiakos in for Kafes and Majstorovic i belive we can take the game in Cyprus.

 

Also APOEL tieded Red Star 2-2 and Aris won 1-0.

 

can anyone know is rukavina expected to play tonight for pao?

 

He is not even in the 18 men squad for the game.He had a minor injury the last days and he is not fully fit.Maybe he won't be available also for the league debut on Sunday.


Olympiacos "fans" attacked Anorthosis bus just after they left the airport...
D*kheads...

 

Why would they attack their fellow greeks :howler:

 

In such crucial matches Olympiacos hardcore fans are well known for being complete d*cks.If you know the Rizoupoli incident some years back you can understand what i'm talking about.

 

Typical, stupid Olympiakos fans. This kind of tactic works in the Olympiakos-controlled Greek League where they would receive no punishment or a light, monetary punishment but not in UEFA where it will backfire. UEFA knows about this and will give Olympaikos a harsh punishment.

 

Panathinaikos won the second clash against Sparta 1-0 and now we are in the CL groups after 3 years of absence.We didn't have the best of the performances though.