Really not sure where to start this one, but I guess Ill begin with Scocco transfer (though I'm
sure most of you have heard by now). Yep, Nacho Scocco is no longer a player of AEK. And I really
don't know what to say about this... literally.
Three seasons he's been with us and in during those three seasons he has left us with so many
great memories: his two goals in the 4-4 Cup Final, his two goals against Oly to give us the win in
Karaiskaki, his two goals (one of them being an outrageously beautiful shot, as were most of his
goals) against Aris, his two goals against Vaslui, his fantastic shot against Panionios, a number
of goals against PAO.
The signing of Miguel Madera, known more commonly as Michel, has been confirmed by AEK on the
club's site. The deal is a loan deal (the player was previously part of Birmingham's squad but
failed to make many appearances from what I read) with an option to buy. I can't say I know very
much about him, but he's said some good things about the club and seems to be happy with moving to
AEK.
What a sweet, sweet victory for all of us AEK fans today! A 2-0 victory over PAO in their own
stadium, with both goals being scored by Libe.
The match was a fairly even affair throughout with neither side absolutely dominating
possession. The match started with a very low pace with neither team looking to risk too much
offensively too early in the game.
I was really looking forward to this game today as it was going to be my first AEK match that
I'd be seeing live since last season. I'm now sitting here wondering what I was all excited about
in the first place!
First match of the new year after a fairly quiet holiday period and we needed a win to keep a
good grip on third place.
Exactly the kind of result I was expecting. Disappointing to say the least, almost repulsive at
times. Our team showed very little will to win, no hunger for any from of result. It is clear that
everyone out their needs to wake up, and soon. We have a great coach leading us but with the way
things are not even Mourinho could get much out of these guys if they don't put in the effort
required.
So, not sure if you saw the result of the Ira-PAO match today, but Ira were up 2-0 early in the
first only to end up blowing it and losing 2-4.
What does this mean? The pressure really is on now for us to take home all three points and
nothing less from our trip to Kavala tomorrow. Certainly easier said than done, but we have no
other option now!
So, I watched most of the first half and parts of the second, but one thing was obvious today.
We didn't deserve even a point today looking at how we played. PAO tied 1-1 at home against
Larissa, yet for the second week in a row we fail to capitalize on a great opportunity and instead
of being that much closer to first we now sit in fourth place (with three teams playing tomorrow
who could catch up to us).
You gotta love AEK. The minute a golden opportunity comes around to put us within two points of
first place, what do we do? We waste it!
Panionios hasn't been our luckiest team to play against recently, and today proved to be no
different. However, very little, not even luck, could have assisted us today with the way our
players played (as was evident considering the fact that Saja saved a penalty).
If you remember from past year's, we've never been extremely impressive in the cup. Narrow wins
against teams like Xanthi, Panserraikos, and even smaller clubs had over time become the norm for
us (aside from that eventful cup final two years ago).
Well, all that changed today! To be honest, after hearing Panthrakikos go up 1-0 I thought we
were gonna be in for another long match.
I'm downloading the match right now and will watch it when its completed. In the meantime Ill
add what I've heard being mentioned so far.
First of all, huge win! We needed a positive result to pick ourselves up after stumbling with
Anderlecht, and we did it. As AEKMAN74 stated, Manolo made a few unexpected choices, but it sounds
as thought they've paid off.
Well, in the second half we showed absolutely none of the brightness of play we displayed in the
first. Â The only change at the start of the half was Djebbour for Makos, but the warning signs
came early. Â In the 48th minute, the first of what would be many defensive errors saw the American
Sacha Kljestan control the ball and deliver a perfect through ball behind AEK's defense and onto
the foot of Lukaku, who, this time at least, bungled his chance.
First, some good news. Â We started the match brightly, played some really nice football,
controlled the middle, maintained possession, and even developed some nice through balls after a
series of one touch passing. Â It was fun to watch, heartening really. Â We lined up in a 4-3-3
like this:
For teams like AEK, games against opponents such as Panserraikos, Kerkyra, Thrasivoulos, etc,
should be MUST WINS. Three points are crucial and while we will unfortunately drop them at times in
the derbies, there is no excuse to not take advantage of weaker opposition. Fortunately for us this
weekend, we did manage to get all three points, and while it is still early, these three points
could prove to be vital.
AEK face Panserraikos tomorrow in Rizoupoli. The game is sold out (not surprisingly considering
season tickets are almost as many as the stadium's capacity) which should make for a great
atmosphere in a football friendly stadium... assuming we get the result we desperately need! Both
Olympiakos (2-0 against Kerkyra in a closed doors Karaiskaki) and PAO (1-0 away to Aris) won this
weekend meaning we have a tough hurdle to overcome if we want to stay near the top (if we lose that
is).
So Friday evening comes and PAO draws 1-1 with Xanthi at home. Saturday evening comes and
Iraklis beat Olympiakos 2-1. Looks like Sunday may turn out to be a pretty good day I was
thinking...
and then AEK loses 2-1 to Kerkyra.
The game was played in Patra since Kerkyra's stadium was not yet up to Superleague
standards.
AEK traveled to Scotland for the first leg of their Europa League qualification playoff tie and
did enough. Â We were solid enough in defense, controlled the midfield for large parts of the game,
and showed some creative flair up top. Â The only goal was created by Scocco who played the ball to
Lago who ran the left flank and sent in a composed cross on the ground behind Dundee's back-line to
Djebbour who cooly finished it off.
AEK held its first training session of the season at Thrakomakedones today though with a smaller
than usual squad (others will be showing up slowly). Regardless, four of our new signings were
present today including Liberopoulos. He sounded confident that we can do something good this
season. As happy as I am to hear that I don't know if I'm as confident.
I left this game for so late because, well, I don't really feel like talking about it. We played
terrible, like a bunch of amateurs. It was obvious PAOK weren't putting all their effort into the
match yet they still out played us. We played with no direction, no passion.
So, we drew to PAOK and Lost to Oly. Things were looking very bad and people were wondering
"what's wrong with the players???". Well, I don't know what was wrong with them but yesterday's 4-2
win against Aris saw a completely different team on the pitch. Sure, a little late to start playing
some football but better late than never and to be honest we still have a chance of getting
something worthwhile out of these playoffs if we keep this up.
Well, I've calmed down since last night so I'll attempt to explain in a clearer way what I saw
last night.
Below is a video showing some of the main highlights of the match (it unfortunately misses the
hit to Scocco's chin so I'll keep an eye out for that one).
Well, after the draw with PAOK many people were commenting on the lack of energy or passion from
the team.
Well, the ref is not helping us (though he did give us a penalty which we scored). However,
aside from that, our defense is terrible! We are letting every ball through, marking is
non-existent. Both Oly goals could have easily been avoided had our defenders been marking their
players.
Anyways, Olympiakos is playing pretty poor football, but our defense is helping them out.
First of all, it's been a while since I lasted posted and quite a bit has happened since
then.
Well, we beat Tripolis in our last regular season game, 2-0 at home. A rather eventful game in
fact so I'll go through some of it here.
We started with a different line up than what was being predicted by most, the main reason for
this being the fact that several players (Scocco, Blanco, Araujo, Arce, Saja, Roger, and others)
were out partying two nights before the game until the early morning hours.
We left Livadia last night with one point from a draw, enough to seal us fourth place as Aris
fall 2-1 to Tripolis. Nothing spectacular really but a game worth commentating on regardless.
So, despite the 0-0 scoreline, both teams had some considerable chances to get a few in the net
with the majority of them coming from Levadeiakos in the first half.
Well, obviously not a favorable result for us yesterday. Sure, we aren't exactly desperate for
points right now (though they would help since Aris is only three behind us) but it's still painful
to see us drop two points at home to this Panionios team.
To be honest, this wasn't our worst performance yet.
So, our excellent form in the second half of the championship continued with only one loss since
the December break. Shame we couldn't have had this form from the start of the season but oh well,
maybe next year.
Anyways, a great win away in a stadium which has only seen one loss (for the home side) before
yesterday's game this entire season.
AEK makes it two for two with PAOK this season before we face them another two times in the
playoffs. Blanco, who has scored in his last four games in Toumba, scored the only goal of the
match after a fantastic display by AEK (especially in the second half).
It's late here however, and I could use some sleep so I'll post a proper match report after
school tomorrow.
I really have no clue what to say. I mean, before this match, I wasn't expecting us to come out
with anything more than one point. Yet to get the full three points and to do it in such a
fantastic way... I'm speechless.
Before I go on I would like to show the lineup for today's match. In goal was Saja.
Well, Saturday came and I was all excited, waiting to watch my team continue it's undefeated
streak. Saturday evening came, I turned my television on and spent the next ninety minutes or so
watching the most depressing performance from AEK in recent memory.
Our team looked dreadful. Honestly, the score could easily have been 3-0 or more for Larissa had
our post, some luck, and a determined Saja not prevented that from happening.
Well, all I can say is we were lucky. PAO had a few incredible chances to score a few goals but
were either stopped by the post or Arabatzis. But, they never should have won in the first round
against us so it's all good
We started without Makos which was great news. Our starting XI was Arabatzis, Araujo,
Majstorovic, Geraldo, Karabelas, Manduca, Kafes, Jahic, Blanco, Scocco, and Djebbour.
Well, it wasn't a pretty win, but at the end of they day it was a well deserved three points.
One goal was scored from Djebbour (who was superb today) and two from not Blanco, not Scocco (he
didn't play in the end), not Leonardo, Hersi, or Guerreiro, but.... KAFES!
Sorry for the delay for this one. AEKMAN74 posted a good summary of the game which you can check
out as well.
Well, my Father and I decided that since I only have half a year left in Greece before I,
unfortunately, have to return to North America for university (don't get me wrong, I love North
America, I just don't know how long I'll be able to stay away from AEK) we'd go up to Thessaloniki
and watch this one so I could experience a proper away game.
So, after our incredible win only five days earlier people were expecting similar things from
last nights game. We thought we were going to get it also after building a healthy 3-1 lead with
plenty of time left. The final score? 3-3
One thing was to blame for this result more than anything else.
So our players went into this game after the first half of what has been the worst season in
AEK's history. Few fans were expecting such a win and such a pleasing performance from our boys.
But, they pulled it off (whether the 150,000 Euro bonus they were promised helped at all I dont
know) and we have begun the new decade with a fantastic win!
