The manner in which Olympiakos prevailed against PAOK in the Stoiximan Super League play-off derby highlighted once again the coaching stamp on the “red and whites”, offering more benefits in view of the final stretch of the season than the victory that kept them on track for contention of the championship.
Vithente Ibora is in trouble. Because when they get old – in football terms – age shows on them. At 37, the Spaniard has been walking since January. Specifically what he can do on the grass.
When last summer he decided to go away for the second time in his career, being in meters on the field that he had not been in even in his prime and having roles that his body could not even at its best serve, probably they were not what he expected.
To play with one on his side in the center. To cover the whole field, from area to area, being the first to press and the last to cover. He didn’t do it in his younger years, now, in the football chests, it is logical and next that it would be impossible for him to respond.
Somehow, he was not only out of the Olympiakos rotation, but also one step away from the exit. Without raising an eyelid, without anyone questioning the correctness and necessity of such an outcome.
It didn’t happen. It was finally left only to have a parapanisian name declared on the European list. He would go out on whatever duty was needed, the season would be over and then he would go home, his tenure leaving nothing but the ginati of the one who picked him to bring him while he counted down to retirement.
His most minutes in a European game was 67 in the Europa League group stage opener in September. On Thursday, it was the first change at Saratsoglou, with Olympiakos struggling to keep Fenerbahce at bay. He played 75 minutes. And the “canaries” did not make another phase.
The last time he had started as a starter was at the end of February in Agrinio. The last time he played ninety minutes, his only one after the summer, was at the beginning of December in Volos, in the last game of the coach who chose him, playing then as a central defender (another patent temporarily adopted to hide what was not happening to do, but nevertheless, he was being asked to do).
The winners and profits in the rotation
On Sunday night he played exactly where he knows. He was asked to do what he can. Coverage in front of the stoppers, with an area of responsibility from the half circle of the area to the center circle. These 30-40 meters. To take the first pass, to face anyone who moves between the lines, having – of course it is necessary – two running backs next to him.
And he took another ninety minutes. “Cap” after the City. Making his best game, “cap” after his… best game.
Only a fraction of the credit Jose Luis Mendiliber is entitled to (also) for managing. With Vasko on the bench, Olympiacos has played 15 games. Ibora has played, from one to ninety minutes now, at 13. From the refrigerator, from the compromise coexistence, to the use. So as. More and otherwise, it cannot be done.
But there is a way (it turns out) to earn one more in the rotation. Without being the only one.
The last time Fran Navarro actually started… he personified the defeat by Panathinaikos (1-3). Yesterday, for as long as he played, he played his best game with the “red and white” and – above all – he uncoordinated Koulierakis more than any of the many famous players that Haniotis has faced recently.
In March and April, Zelson Martins had two hours of ball, divided into three games, at his feet. Yesterday, he played 78 minutes. More than when he is at Olympiakos. He sealed the victory in the derby with his maiden goal in Greece.
Two ninety minutes was counted by Nelson Abbey. One in the hospitality of Volos with the Thessalians playing with ten from the center of almost the game and the second in Lamia. Yesterday he took the third, upgrading through his appearance the status not only for the rest of this year’s rotation, but also for next year.
The last time Kini – and the only time during Mendiliber – was in the starting line-up was (he too, like Ibora) in Agrinio. Not only did he fill the shoes of the one (not just anyone) who was called upon to score, but he also became the first defender to score for Olympiakos in nearly three months.
Yesterday’s defense quartet, Kini, Retsos, Abi, Richards, has hardly been together even in a training double. The only phase he conceded was in the offsides – and that with the Spaniard knocked down and Masoura having lost coverage – in the PAOK goal.
Probably, in the end, the effective, consistent defensive function does not depend solely on the presence of Karmos.
In City, Fenerbahce’s initial goalscorer was Podense, who did not turn to cover, providing the springboard for a perfect attacking move by the Canaries, who capitalized on what the defense (and the Portuguese for that matter) gave them. , they scored.
Yesterday, Podense not only covered Richards, but was there, even further behind him to double him, take the ball from Sastre’s descent and thus start the Olympiakos counter-attack. This cover says more than the assist he got on his compatriot to make it 2-0.
Philosophy and approach with… first name
All little things, but now evident of an approach, a philosophy that has a name and stems from a specific training concept, which already passes into everything around and through the team. And it produces. Results, improvement, good football, new protagonists and even valuable sidekicks.
After all, without such, double shows, in the month of April, are not uploaded. From Thursday to Sunday, Mendiliber made eight changes. Lucescu, changed (except Kotarski) in his own line-up compared to the one against Brugge, just two.
As the calendar has been formed, Vaskos could not do otherwise. The risk he took was huge – even if he himself certainly did not see it as such – in a game with no tomorrow for Olympiakos. So is his credit. Not only for the result, but mainly for the others that are not weighed by just one, any such.
Olympiacos still has seven games to play, the most of any other team within the borders. The important thing about the moment and the ambition is that by activating and winning bodies, players, psychology, faith in the plan, the “red and whites” are legitimized to hope that they will remain, Wednesday (and Thursday) – Sunday, continuously for the next three weeks, in state that they will not depend on persons, absent or present, to maintain the momentum that has brought them this far.
That is, to be, to be considered and show, contenders for the championship, which in itself highlights the progress that has been made, but at the same time to hope, without hiding it and above all without seeming to be futile or exaggerating, that these seven games they are capable of making eight.
