Olympiakos: As long as he does not solve this problem, he will continue to stumble Blog – Kostas Nikolakopoulos

K. Nikolakopoulos explains in his blog in the gazzetta yesterday’s mistake, and not only, by Olympiakos.

There is no doubt that Mendiliber has done a lot of good for his team in a record time – after all, he immediately won the trust of Marinakis and a new contract.

The Basque he has solved many of Olympiakos’ racing problems and that’s why he’s advancing to Europe and still surviving in the championship race. He has not, however, succeeded in one more thing, which proves to be very difficult to solve: what does the team do when it cannot open the scoring itself and concedes the first goal.

Let me remind that in Europe both times when Olympiacos scored first, they ended up losing: both to Maccabi Tel Aviv at home with a very ugly 1-4, and to Fenerbahce away 0-1. Fortunately, these defeats did not cost him in the end, as he won the qualifiers at least in overtime with the Israelis and in the penalty shootout with the Turks.

In GREECE the same thing happened four times!

When it happened with smaller teams, of the play outs, the “red and whites” even marginally won, but really with great difficulty: both in the 2-1 against Asteras Tripoli at home (with the goals in the 79th minute with a penalty and in the 87th minute, as well as 2-1 against Panaitolikos away from home (with an own goal in the 72nd minute and a goal from a big mistake by the opponent in the 79th minute).

When it happened with stronger teams, the losses came. An unfair 0-1 loss in Philadelphia against AEK, who scored in the 91st minute, but a big loss. And just as big a loss yesterday in the 1-1 draw in Charilaou with Aris this time leading in the 48th minute and Olympiakos not being able to turn it around even though he was lucky and equalized immediately, in the 53rd minute, with 43 minutes ahead of him. which he never used. And I say he was lucky, because he equalized within four minutes canceling the lead of Aris and especially with the ball reaching the scorer Zelson from a chase by Brambets, who caught up and put his foot before Fortounis.

It is about for a scenario, with Olympiakos being unable to overturn at the expense of the score in its most important games, which we have unfortunately been experiencing for two or three years, which is exactly why it is obviously not easy for the coach to solve it. Especially this season, it is a continuation of the defeats against Freiburg (2-3 and 0-5), West Ham (0-1), PAOK (2-4), PAO (0-2), AEK (1- 2), even Lamia (0-1) and Volos (2-2). With the previous coaches the situation was even worse, with Olympiakos under Carvalial only turning the game against Panaitolikos against Karaiskakis (3-1) and under Martinez not even having an upset, but at least drawing (1-1) except Genk and AEK at home, and PAO at home in the game that was stopped at 49′.

Under them the conditions we can probably understand why Medilibar in his remarks after yesterday’s match he repeatedly referred to (Doe’s) mistake, which gave the lead to Mars. He believed that at some point in the second half his team would open the scoring and thus get the three points. Maybe he is right, but it is true that the worst part of Olympiacos yesterday was the period from 60′ to the final whistle…

Then, who essentially threatened only with El Kaabi, in the phase in which in the end he did not even shoot from a very favorable position, after Brambetz caught up with him, a work that we have seen and seen again with the Moroccan delaying to shoot with the goalkeeper opposite, until when he is cut by the stoppers… And when he shoots, like yesterday in one phase earlier, with the start of the second half, sending the ball over the goalkeepers – yesterday to Questas, with AEK to Athanasiadis etc…

At the same during this time, from 60′ to 96′ when the tragic Slovenian referee blew the whistle (it’s really laughable for UEFA to nominate him in the Champions League, obviously because he is a compatriot of its president, the… awesome Ceferin), Tzolakis had to he blocked two shots from good positions, and Aris lost the chance of the game in the 96th minute, due to a mistake this time by Karmos, when he placed on the goalkeeper’s lap, while two of his teammates were facing the nets…

Unfortunately at Olympiakos yesterday we didn’t see a clear mind, either because of fatigue, or because the team failed to manage the stress of “must win”. Olympiacos having been so early (beginning of February) so behind (4^oat -8 from 1^The) has long been forced to play under this soul-destroying condition, which apparently his players cannot endure, if we remember that even when they took the lead against Panathinaikos in Karaiskakis, they went into half-time behind the score and were finally defeated by the heavy 1-3.

Is it is very difficult for a coach to manage such a situation, no matter how experienced he is, since he is also obliged to learn through these games both his team in general and each player in particular. And with Olympiakos, moreover, having obvious weaknesses in its roster, in terms of extra quality. Plus the hostile refereeing he gets in many of his games, as happened now with the Slovenian referees and VAR, for whom anyway I had planned for you since yesterday afternoon– this Obrenovic gave only three fouls against Aris in the first half!!!

Sure, if I want to be correct, I have to accept that Panathinaikos with even worse refereeing, that of Stavrev’s Skopiano, won in Harilaou, an Aris who was very good then in the first 45 minutes. Because quite simply he kept a clean sheet (something Olympiacos can’t keep in 80% of their games!) and his centre-forward, Sporar, made a good play when he was in a good position. Yesterday, Olympiakos centre-forward El Kaabi was unable to capitalize on any of his four (!) chances, not even the one where he simply needed to nip the ball in front of Questa, seconds before the ball hit the post from against the ball in his hand – there and if it entered the nets, the goal would be disallowed.

Anyway, most Olympiakos’ chances of winning the championship are simply mathematical – and even they may disappear on Sunday night if AEK can get even a draw in Toumba. In such a case, even if he takes all four of his games, he loses them in a draw. For the miracle to happenshould AEK lose and Olympiacos make it four out of four, i.e. beat Lamia on Sunday in Karaiskakis, but also win the three derbies in one week, from May 12 to 19, outside with PAOK, inside with AEK and outside with PAO.

RealisticallyOlympiacos is absolutely in danger of finishing in 4th place^the position and then have to beg for PAO to beat Aris in the final of the Cup, in order to participate in the Conference League next year, to win the Conference League this year, which you don’t say…easy, having to play in semi-finals with Aston Villa, at 2.5 and 9.5 immediately before the trio of league derbies.

Can anyone say that Olympiakos is comfortable with AEK winning on Sunday, or even a draw, so that they can overtake PAOK in points, beating Lamia. Because the very next game is PAOK-Olympiakos. Bad lies, the team from Mendiliber is seven games in a row in 4^the position. It doesn’t come off from there. How easy will it be to pull off in the finale? She should, at a minimum, not lose in Toumba, without even this development guaranteeing her anything.

Irrelevant: I think the statistics office wrongly credited the goal to Zelson, after El Kaabi “stole” it from him, pushing the ball into the nets before the ball crossed the line. It’s not fair for Zelson, but typically the goal belongs to the Moroccan, who, let’s not forget, is also going to be the top scorer and may lose the lead from this stage. Even in the match in Lamia, at 5-1, El Kaabi could be credited with the goal that was credited as an own goal to Kyriakos Papadopoulos.

Photo of the day:

I have a feelingto be sure, that the team needed them even earlier than 67′, when Podense and Ciquinho came on, but also more refreshment, if we consider that Navarro came on at 79′ and El Arabi at 86′, while a fifth change was not even made .Olympiacos wasn’t good enough to stay with them, especially seeing that Jovetic has limped very early in the second half and Zelson is still unable to play at a satisfactory level for more than 60 minutes.

It’s good that Zelson scored for the second important game in a row, because of course he will be helped psychologically, but with El Kaabi four games away from the goal and Fortunis, Pontense with one goal in five matches each, Olympiacos loses a lot in execution. And Jovetic in both of his last two games, with Fenerbahce away from home and also yesterday, was down, having the misfortune of having his goal disallowed in his only good finish in the game.

There which I really wondered, because he is a class player if nothing else, he was only in phase 3^u minute, when with Cuesta away, Jovetic could not make a simple good place in the empty net and chose to make a tragic turn, something like a pass. See the related photo…

Olympiakos he didn’t get much from his sidekicks yesterday either. I can remember from so many possessions, a good cross by Rodini with Ibora not finding the ball, a somewhat good one by Zelson with Jovetic attempting a scissor and from there bad crosses by Fortuny, Zelson, Jovetic, Ese, but also of Pontense when he entered.

Ortega he outdid himself yesterday, since out of the ten crosses he attempted, seven were bad, one good (in the 7th minute, to El Kaabi’s header) and another one, let’s say not bad, with El Kaabi attempting for the umpteenth time to score with scissors, at a time when we all know that in football such goals, like the one against Maccabi in Serbia, a goal is scored every three years. And we saw that Jovetic was also jealous and went to score in the same way yesterday.

I would say that it is preferable for the Olympiakos players to try to score goals in more orthodox ways. And then to look for heels and scissors.

And finally one