On a chilly night in Donetsk, the Greek National Team warmed the hearts of its supporters as Dimitrios Salpingidis netted a quality strike to post a 1-0 win over Ukraine at the Donbass Arena on Wednesday. After a score-less draw in Athens on Saturday, Greece secured their spot in next summer's Click to continue reading...

The UEFA 2010 World Cup Qualifying Playoffs wrapped up on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 with the second legs. Greece faced Ukraine in one of the matches with the score 0-0 on aggregate after the first leg. Here's a recap of the match along with video highlights.

Greece beats Ukraine 1-0 Video Highlights

Greece scored a first half goal and was able to hold Ukraine scoreless as they earned their spot in South Africa next summer.

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A resurgent AEK overcame a depressing 4-0 thrashing to Everton two weeks ago to grind out a surprising but deserved 1-0 victory over Portugeuese powerhouse club Benfica FC.

The night started dismally for AEK. Playing what I believe was a 4-2-3-1 with Saja in goal and Juanfran, Arce, Marjstorovic, and Gorgeas in the back, Kafes and Jahic in defensive midfield roles, Manduca, Scocco and Hersi forming a three-man attacking line and Blanco playing lone goal-poacher up top, AEK struggled for possession early on.

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Well Liverpool have confirmed everything here. Its as close to a done deal now and all that remains is the medical. AEK have also stated that they will not get in his way if this it what Kyrgiakos really wants.

While I'm proud to see Kyrgiakos going to play abroad for Liverpool what is disgusting me is the way Liverpool are trying to negotiate things.

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Highlights Below (Pavlis Goal, Burgas Goal, and Scocco post)

Again, another draw for AEK. I believe that's our third from three friendlies. Perhaps not an encouraging result on paper, but in reality, AEK dominated the match.

Each half saw two different lineups. The first half seemed to have what might be considered to main squad, consisting of players such as Scocco, Blanco, and Majstorovic.

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So, AEK has been on the news all day, and everyday, for the past few days. The reason why? It looks like two Cypriot investors (the identities have not yet been revealed) are going to invest a large sum of money. I can't remember the exact details but I believe one of the Cypriot investors will be investing seven million euros, another will invest two million, and the shareholders already with AEK will add another six million, meaning that overall, fifteen million euros will be invested into the team.

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The "Pirate ship", that tight, disciplined but uncreative juggernaut, known as the Greek national team has somehow managed to find their way, barely , to the top of European qualifying group 2. Struggling to emerge from the huge footprints of their predecessors, the 2004 euro champions, like Modern Greece trying . Click to continue reading...

Well, its finally been confirmed: Katsouranis has singed for Panathinaikos. Its a hrard thing for me as an AEK Supporter to believe and accept but if that is what he truly wants then I guess nothing and nobody can stop him; money does have a way of speaking to people. Im sure, however, that he must be ready for the hostile greeting he will recieve at OAKA this upcoming season.

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The singing of talented Greek Midfielder Makos has finaly been confirmed by AEK. The player is regarded as a huge prospect in greece and should provide alot to the team. He was captain of Panionios from an early age and has also represented the Greek National Team on a number of occassions.

In other AEK news, the team has confirmed some of its preseason friendlies which will be played in Austria.

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Greece managed to get three points in the second fixture within a week against Israel to improve their chances of making it the World Cup Finals in 2010. It was a decent performance by Greece who managed to creat many chances, but only managed to find the net once (once through a penalty). AEK centre back [. Click to continue reading...

The club from Fylis who came back from a 3-0 defecit to tie AEK 3-3 earlier this season almost got away with a another draw, this time at OAKA. However, youngster Panagiotis Tachtsidis came to the rescue in extra time and salvaged the three points for AEK. Tachtsidis, who is only 18 (he scored on the [. Click to continue reading...

So long to overpaid, out of form, national team captain, Angelos Basinas.  He may have done a lot of Greek soccer in the past, but for AEK, he's barely made an impact.  I can't imagine he's what Pompey need, but maybe they've just given up and are starting to build a squad for next season's run [. Click to continue reading...

Ah, its that twice-yearly time when rumor and intrigue take over the football/soccer blogosphere.  With the January transfer window fast approaching, here at the names being thrown about at possible AEK transfer: 1.  Burno Cirillo.  A perennial transfer rumor.  This guy was an AEK fan favorite when he played for us from 2005-2007. Click to continue reading...

AEK's three first half goals did not go unanswered for long.  It took just 31 minutes of the second half for Thrasyvoulos to pull even.  Yes, it is almost unimaginable that a team of AEK's supposed caliber would concede three goals in half an hour to a team holding onto the bottom of the table [... Click to continue reading...

AEK, after a disappointing performance, luckily managed to get away with 1 point yesterday. The team played a poor game of soccer and only until Basinas was taken out at half time were they able to consistently create chances in front of the Larissa goal. Even then, with both Blanco and Djebbour up front they [. Click to continue reading...

Bad news all around this morning for fans of Greece and AEK.  After ho-hum wins against Latvia and Moldova, the Greeks lost their first real test against what is still just a middling Swiss side, though one that has shown some signs of improvement, particularly during Euro 2008 (when they were without several key players [. Click to continue reading...

Greece is down 1-0 at half time after Switzerland was awarded a penalty which they managed to capitalize on. AEK defender Sotiris Kyrgiakos was pulled out early in the first half after complaining about pains. At the moment, it is not clear whether it is just a cramp or if it is an injury which [...] Click to continue reading...

Greece defeated Moldova yesterday to maintain their unbeaten status on 2010 World Cup qualifiers. Full report here. Click to continue reading...

Making Kyrgiakos captain was not enough to limit the damage when playing the red team away, so now we've slipped to sixth.  We'll have to wait another week to move back up though, since World Cup 2010 qualifiers return this weekend. Speaking of which, former AEK star Lyberopoulos is trying to rally the fans behind the [. Click to continue reading...

Stelios Giannakopoulos has had an awful offseason, which has seen the 34-year-old be released from Premier League club Bolton Wanderers and dropped from the Greek National Team. After a summer of speculation regarding Giannakopoulos' next stop, a long lasting rumor has returned to the spotlight as media reports link Giannakopoulos Click to continue reading...

AEK drew their first of two friendlies this weekend 2-2. AEK played wusing the 4-4-2 formation. The goals for AEK were scored by RAFIK DJEBOUR!! in the 5th minute and Pantelis Kafes in the 30th minute. Augustin Pelletieri, according to some newspaper reports, still needs a bit of time to adjust to the new formation. Click to continue reading...

Those of you who read my game review from last weekend's derby know I think quite a lot of Pliatsikas. Apparently, so does King Otto. Pliatsikas's first call-up, combined with Rehhagel's call-up of Ninis and exclusion of Giannakopoulos may mean that King Otto is finally about the business of revamping the National Team. Click to continue reading...

Kyrgiakos finally makes his debut, and impresses.  Article here. As Alex originally report on this blog two days ago (the first English site with the story),it looks like Demis really is resigning, though not until the end of the season. Article here. Click to continue reading...

AEK finished their final friendly with a victory after going down 0-1 in the first half. The starting lineupfor AEK's final game before the critical match against Omonia included Jurgen Macho and Edinho, both of whom have not played with team for quite a while now. The game overall was a definate imprpovement over past games, [. Click to continue reading...

The Greek National Team returns to action tomorrow night in Bratislava against Slovakia in an International Friendly. Thanks to miserable run at EURO 2008 by dropping all three games, Greece was eliminated in the group stage and never put up much of title defense. Now the Piratiko returns to action Click to continue reading...

Back on track.  Playing without many of our starters due to their respective national team call-ups, AEK played a solid 90 minutes of football, lifting themselves up from their sluggish performance last week against Omonia.  There was more of the nice one-touch passing we saw glimpses of in the Omonia match but better finishing this [. Click to continue reading...

The Australian press continues their Burns obsession, documenting every second the youngster spends on the pitch of AEK.  The latest article, from the Australian 4-4-2, regards his 12 minutes in our friendly against Bolton and can be read here. Click to continue reading...

Alex is off on vacation and I've been busy at work, on my amatuer team AEK Baltimore (three games in three days) and nursing a nasty case of Athletic Pubalgia, so we've let the blog slide a few days. My apologies. The news has really started to pile up. AEK destroyed Turkish-side Ancaragucu on Sunday in Austria. Click to continue reading...

Sotiris Kyrgiakos has officially signed with AEK after leaving Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany. The centre back will join newly aqquired Greek National Aggelos Basinas who signed with AEK last night. Kyrgiakos should bring experience and add stability to a defence which as of right now looks like it should be a pretty solid back line [. Click to continue reading...

The signing of Aggelos Basinas, which has been spreading around in rumors all summer long has finally been officially released on AEK's website. He recently declined Olympiakos' offer of a two year contract and has instead signed with AEK for three years. His experience should add some stability to an AEK squad filled with young, [. Click to continue reading...

The latest reports have Papastathopoulos, the 20 year old rising star, moving to Genoa (10th in Serie A). This is hardly surprising as he has been rumored to be moving to a bigger club for more than a year now. More surprising is the news that Kyrgiakos is set to be his replacement. Kygriakos is pure [. Click to continue reading...

Today's press coverage of AEK's release of Dellas here and here. Press coverage of his move to Cypriot champions Anorthosis Famagusta here, here and here. Click to continue reading...

Traianos Dellas has been released. Reports on the radio in Greece this morning stated that Dellas terminated his contract with AEK, but now some press reports are coming out stating that he had some kind of row with club chairman Demis Nikolaidis. More as it develops... Click to continue reading...

This kind of snuck up on us, didn't it? Last season finished, there was a bit of transfer news, then the Euro 2008 tournament, then very little, just the long-expected departure of Lyberopoulos. So we searched for match reports of the U-19s to get a glimpse of Pavlis or Papastathopoulos, clicked over to footballshirtculture. Click to continue reading...

Goal.com coverage here. AEK's Pavlis scored in the 23rd minute off an assist from Ninis. Also a FIFA.com has a good summary of the tournament and the key player's from each team (including AEK's Papastathopoulos) here. Click to continue reading...