Hello once again my fellow Phantis friends. The striker is back after a bit of a spell away. Most of you know the circumstances of my non-appearance so I won't labor on it. It's good to be back refreshed and rested.

Well, what a last 2 weeks it has been for Greek football. Our teams kicked off their European campaigns and 2 weeks later I think we are still all disillusioned. PAOK kicked of their European campaign with a 2-1 away loss to a 3rd Division Portuguese Sea Port team called Leixoes for the UEFA cup. Such was their performance that their best player on the day was their goalkeeper who managed to keep the score respectable and PAOK in the tie with some brilliant saves against this amateur port side of fishermen. Now, what disappointed me most, however, was that upon PAOK's return to Greece, no Panathinaikos fans jumped on this humiliating result and cried out how much disgrace and shame this result brought to Greece, which we are normally accustomed to hearing, considering how much they say they have done for Greek soccer in Europe. Perhaps the fact that this very same PAOK team, which lost to a 3rd division Portuguese team beat the "Greens" 4-1 a few weeks earlier might have had something to do with that, along with the fact that their eternal arch-rivals were playing a couple of days later.

I presume this was a strategic move from the Panathinaikos faithful to focus all their energies for what was to be an impending Olympiakos disaster in the opening matchday of the Champions League against last year's runners-up Bayer Leverkusen, a mass celebration of their eternal arch-rivals impending European underachievement. A disaster, which disappointingly for them never came , Olympiakos not only found a way to defeat Bayer Leverkusen 6-2 but also found a way to beat their coach's negative tactics in what turned out to be a triumphant night. All of a sudden the team which had "humiliated" Greek soccer so much in Europe according to the Panathinaikos fans in recent years had become the talk of Europe, crushing last year's Champions League finalists with a 6 goal spree in 65 minutes, on their way to a win which is the biggest by any Greek team in the Champions League to date. What surprised me in this instant was that no "Green" fans jumped up and labelled this win a fluke, no, not to be outdone the "Greens" took a leaf out of the "Reds" book and labelled it as a win against a "kafenio (coffee-shop)". Kafenio Leverkusen were not if you have all look at their playing roster. The Derby newspaper which is a paper with philo-Green tendencies picked up on this and somehow managed to seize this win from the eternal European "underachievers" and passed on the Glory to the professionals of European soccer, Panathinaikos, "Epaikse san PAO kai kerdise (They played like Panathinaikos and won)" was emblazed across their front page title, stealing the limelight from the Reds onto the Greens.

These weren't the only titles however, Takis Lemonis the embattled Olympiakos coach was writing titles of his own, the man everyone had written off was suddenly the talk of the town for those foolish enough to think it was his masterstroke that brought down Bayer Leverkusen. Redemption for Lemonis the titles wrote, redemption for the 4-5-1 system that he persevered with even though the 6 goals that were scored was achieved by playing with 3 strikers. Redemption for persisting with a system which has brought him to date zero away wins and goals. A new system was born that night, the 4-5-1 with 3 strikers,"Total Lemonis Football", the game that was mastered by the "Flying Dutchmen" in the 70's "Total Football" was perfected by the "Flying Lemon-Man" 30 years later. And while the "Flying Lemonman" was stealing the titles another Greek team was trying to scale European heights of their own. The double headed Eagle better known as AEK Athens were also making their Champions League matchday debut after 9 years absence against Racing Genk of Belgium. And those who saw the game would confess that AEK played well, deserving more than just the 1 point they gained having more than enough chances to win the match. The double headed eagle could have and should have been flying higher if it wasn't for their perennial Big Match Choker Demis Nikolaidis missing those very simple chances which saw 2 points fly away. Harsh words but true, in the matches that really have mattered Demis has not delivered. The Greek European campaign that week was completed by Iraklis who defeated Anorthosis of Cyprus and Xanthi who lost 4-0 to Lazio and of course Euro-PAO's defeat of Litex Lovech with an own goal by a Bulgarian coal miner, another glorious chapter written in their European history.

The European games ended that week and it was back to the business of Greek football on the weekend. Politicians did themselves, their constituents and the teams a favour by promising to build the big Athenian trio stadiums all this while the Greek league was heading for a shutdown due to television distribution rights dispute. The Greek league did go ahead last weekend as it was announced the league would stop for 2 weeks the following week to rectify the existing problems. Nothing unusual happened in week 4 of Greek league matches, attendances for some matches did not exceed the 800 mark which is a norm, Panathinaikos the pride of Greece in Europe who was currently winless in Greece after 3 starts beat Ionikos 0-1 in a match, which the referee won for them with his appalling decision. In other words your run of the mill weekend in Greek football. Panathinaikos were punished with a home ground ban for the "mandatory" damage their fans caused at Philadelphia because of their teams loss to AEK, a ban which will undoubtedly be appealed, and if not overturned look out for them to find a manner to serve this home ground ban against smaller teams in a cup tie. But the decision that really impressed me the most was the 12 league points that were deducted from the well supported rural team PAS Giannina for financial debts, by EPAE. EPAE mean business too, they will deduct a further 3 points for every matchday PAS Giannina fails to make these payments, Hmmmmmmm...

But I need to ask these people of "wisdom" at EPAE a legitimate question. What penalties did they implement to PAOK for these very same breaches less than 2 months ago? How many points did they deduct of PAOK for their financial debts to their players and other organizations? Instead of punishing PAOK and releasing certain players from their legal obligations due to a breach of contract (non payment of wages) these people of "wisdom" at EPAE decided it was in the best interests to PAOK and Greek soccer that the contracts of those players, which were clearly breached should not be rescinded. But it gets better, PAS Giannina were deducted 12 points, when UEFA threatened PAOK with expulsion for debts owed the people at EPAE suddenly forgot to count numbers and they seemed to have misplaced the rule books to punish PAOK, apart from not deducting PAOK any points, EPAE scrambled to the Greek government and asked for monetary assistance to settle PAOK's debt with UEFA. All in the name of protecting Greek teams of course, or should I say, all in the name of selectively protecting Greek soccer teams.

And so another weekend of Greek football passed and it was time again to wear our European uniforms this week. First off the blocks this week was Olympiakos fresh from their 6-2 hammering of Leverkusen who were being hosted "away" from home in Cyprus by Maccabi. The questions and pre-match talk was not if Olympiakos would win but by how many. Little did they know though that Lemonis, the players and the referee had other ideas. What was supposed to be a routine match turned into a 3-0 humiliation disappointing many fans and angering just as many punters. All of a sudden things were getting back to normal in the "Green" part of the town after this loss by the eternal arch-rivals, Panathinaikos fans were heard singing again, Pro "Green" papers resorted to the usual headlines of how the Greek champions continue to humiliate Greece, and all of a sudden Lemonis was no longer walking on water. I was hoping to catch a newspaper headline "Ksexase ta vraxiola kai koliedes kai exase" but Derby Newspaper let me down. What's some papers did write thought was how Olympiakos president Socrates Kokkalis went to the training grounds to voice his concerns and warn the players to get their act together or else, he said this in between the laugh he was having with them after informing them he had just extended Lemonis contract. So it was back to reality for the Greek champions. On the other side of town though AEK were trying to put aside the reality that they were playing a stronger team on paper in the name of Roma. And they did well, again, but you guessed it, the perennial choker did not deliver, again. Two more points thrown away and a spot in the 2nd phase of the Champions League gone just like that. AEK could have easily amassed 6 points to date, but Demis had other ideas, again. So we all walked away and counted how much the Greek teams achieved this week and the reality is, we achieved just 1 point.

But the depression that was slowly creeping into us suddenly disappeared when we were thrust back into the daily happenings of Greek football. Of course Makis Psomiadis and the lawsuit brought against him by Kostas Laliotis the PASOK politician took the limelight. As we all know "Big Mac" is the current AEK president who is currently fighting a liable lawsuit of accusing Kostas Laliotis of receiving bribes from the German company, which one the contract to build the airport. Laliotis attended court with half of the government ministers by his side, such is the significance and magnitude of this case of national security. We will be seeing a lot more of this case in the headlines, the Greek league has just taken a 2 week recess to sort out the television rights and "Stoixima" disputes. And so the circus continues, "Total football", Greek style.

Thank god we have televisions and we can tune on Serie A and the premier league, which keep us sane. Until next time.

• Country Directory
  Australia
  Canada
  Cyprus
  France
  Germany
  Greece
  Italy
  United Kingdom
  USA