This, courtesy of GolTV, is the sweetest sight I've seen in a while:

3:00 pm UEFA Europa League Everton vs AEK Athens

Greek Americans rejoice! GolTV seems to have successfully bid for the US broadcasting rights of at least some Europa League Group Stage Matches.

This weekend (Labor Day Weekend here in the May-Day-Hating United States) signals the end of the Summer. The other thing that always signals the end of Summer for me is the closing of the transfer window. It's done now, but not before we squeezed in two last signings. I meant to post this a few days ago, but better late than never:

FC Twente have captured Perparim Hetemaj from AEK Athens FC in a swap deal that takes Dutch midfielder Youssouf Hersi from the Netherlands to the Greek capital.

An extremely disappointing result today for AEK in Giannena.

Our starting lineup consisted of Saja, Araujo, Majstorovic, Arce, Juanfran, Hersi, Guerreiro, Jahic, Manduca, Nemeth, Pavlis.

I can't comment much on the first half since I could only watch the second half, but from what I heard we saw some decent passing from the team.

The FIFA Under-20 World Cup starts tomorrow (Thursday) in Egypt, and ESPN has identified eleven players it believes will stand-out in the tournament. Among them is our own Krisztian Nemeth:

Krisztian Nemeth (Hungary & Liverpool)
Krisztian Nemeth joins Liverpool team-mates Andras Simon and keeper Peter Gulacsi in the Hungary squad, although he is currently on loan to Greek side AEK Athens.

Some important comments to mention about yesterday's match.

Firstly, our to team put on a good performance. Even now more can be improved on. but it was a solid game for the most part with some enjoyable football.

This is definately a good result. On paper, Iraklis are certainly not a pushover this year with some pretty impressive signings being made for them over the summer.

Obviously not the result we were hoping for. The lads did indeed show up to play tonight but the final touch wasn't there. Creating and finishing chances is a huge part of football though, so we've only ourselves to blame (well, maybe the refs can share the blame!). I was stuck in the office for this match, but I was able to watch a low-quality stream for about twenty minutes in the second half.

A long press conference was held a few days ago by team president Thanopoulos. The president spoke for a couple of hours on a number of issues. Some of the highlights were:

-Firstly, he confirmed that things around the team are now calm. We have achieved our goals in terms of transfers and reaching the Europa League Group Stages

-The team is now on much more solid ground, financially.

We got a good win tonight at OAKA against a team that could have put up some difficulties. Unfortunately though, its quite late here, so I dont have time to post a review right now. Either I'll write it tomorrow or perhaps if either AEKMAN74 or AEKBaltimore watched the match they'll get something.

Ketsbaia, for those too young remember, was a great AEK player between 94-97 who scored an impressive 23 goals in 84 games. From AEK he enjoyed a successful spell at Newcastle in England's top flight. Considering Olymiakos have not lost an "official" match yet, I suppose this is the way of the modern football world.

Well, our match in Giannena starts in a little under an hour. Our most likely starting lineup is said to be Saja, Araujo, Majstorovic, Arce, Juanfran, Jahic, Guerreiro, Hersi, Manduca, Nemeth, and Blanco. We will be going 4-4-2 with Blanco and Nemeth up front. A good line-up in my opinion, very strong, with some experienced players.

Decent match preview here. We've had a bit of a bad run lately, so it's hard not to be nervous. But if our lads show up to play, there is no question we are the better team.

Well, there has been quite a bit of discussion in the post AEKBaltimore put up. Since the match alot has happened, most regarding the horrendous officiating at the match. But first, a review.

For everyone who has been following AEK you know how incredibly unlucky we tend to be, especially when it matters most.

So, another derby lost. That makes it the first time we've lost two derbies in a row in about ten years. Not a good sign.

Not many positives to take from this game, both sides played some pretty poor football. I'm not going to bother writing much as there is little to say. Firstly, our forwards still can't score.