We won again last night, this time in Basketball away at the Voulgaroi. Even sweeter was the manner in which we won, stealing the match in the final minute to win 72-74.
We have Thursday's game with Poutanas Gios at OAKA on the 7th day of the Euroleague. This will be where we get to shut a lot of criticism up and smash the greens!

1st Quarter : Voulgaroi 23-14 Olympiakos
2nd Quarter : Voulgaroi 37-40 Olympiakos
3rd Quarter : Voulgaroi 51-52 Olympiakos
4th Quarter : Voulgaroi 72-74 Olympiakos
 
Olympiakos: Moon 11, Dunston 8, Spanoulis 6, Perperoglou 3, Sloukas 12, Collins 12, Simons, Lojeski 9, Printezis 8, Mantzaris 3, Kavvadas.

We had a very one sided match yesterday where we trounced Platanias by four goals to two. Unfortunately we had to wait for the scoring to properly start until the 70th minute or so but we had multiple attempts on the Platanias goal until then.

The game was notable for seeing the first goal at from Valdez and Perez whilst emerging star Olaitan scored yet another. On loan Vlachodimos scored from a great shot as a consolation for the visitors but all in all it was a very good game from us.

Olympiakos 4-2 Platanias

28' Olaitan, 68' Valdez, 70' Perez, 78' Marcano - 37' Torres, 72' Vlachodimos

Olympiakos :  Roberto, Papazoglou (66' Ibagaza), Papadopoulos, Marcano, Bong, Maniatis, N'Dinga, Olaitan (73' Machado), Perez, Dominguez (57' Valdez), Saviola.

Michael Olaitan scored a brace at the weekend and got another assist.

In Michel's own words, "He (Olaitan) is a basic and important player for Olympiakos. He was called to fill the gap of Mitroglou and succeeds in the best possible way. I wish I had in the team other players like Olaitan!"

Not bad at all for a player we got on a cut price deal in the summer and is now on 10 goals and 5 assists in all competitions.

Olympiakos will present our four recent acquisitions to the media this afternoon. Nelson Valdez, Hernan Perez, Ivan Marcano and Pele will talk about their move and answer a quesiton and answer session.

Some comments so far :-

Marcano: I'd like to thank the club and the fans. I want this season to be even better than previous. Thank you again everyone.

Perez: I'm very pleased that I came to Olympiakos. I hope to do the best I can. Thank you for the confidence you have shown me.

Marcano: I have been on loan for six months, but I have expectations to do perform well and remain in Olympiakos.

Valdez: It is an opportunity to play again in the Champions League, which is the dream of every player. I have many expectations and look forward to play against Manchester United.

Perez: I have taken part in the Champions League with Villareal. I am already looking forward to the matches with Manchester United.


The club also announced the signing of Roberto on a 4 year deal. The transfer is worth €6m but it is a very good price for a top class goalkeeper.

We won our match earlier today thanks to two goals from Scepovic and Samaris which put Panionios to the sword. We had an early evening kickoff which meant that I saw the game delayed. The early evening kickoff in the middle of the week didn't help the crowd achieve any sort of decent numbers either but this was to be expected.

It was kind of a shame that there were so few there as we played very well, certainly at the start of the game and Samaris' free kick which he scored from was a superb effort. Scepovic doubled the advantage a few minutes later and Samaris came close again (but wide) all in the first quarter of the match.

The remainder of the half didn't see any let up in our attacking. Scepovic rounded the keeper at one stage only to have the ball grabbed from his feet at the last moment and generally we looked very bright.

The second half saw more attacking play with the ball being cleared off the Panionios goalline at one stage. It was definitely good to see a decent display after the turgid affair on Sunday.
Perez was introduced in the 52nd minute to make his introduction to the team whilst Dominguez replaced Scepovic in the 59th. Scepovic put in a good display today and was unlucky not to have scored more than one goal.

In all, it was a good performance and a decent enough result. I believe that we have Veroia next (Saturday) and we should be really looking for another 3 points then.


Olympiakos 2-0 Panionios
11' Samaris
17' Scepovic


Olympiakos : Roberto, Salino, Papadopoulos, Marcano, Holebas, Samaris (69' Pele), N'Dinga, Campbell(52' Perez), Saviola, Olaitan, Scepovic (59' Dominguez)

The team of 18 players for tonights game against Panionios was announced yesterday. There's no real surprises - Nelson Valdez is injured (already!), Perez makes his debut and Bong is dropped because he's shit.

Heres the full team for the match (starts 17.15) :-

Olympiakos : Roberto, Megyeri, Campbell, Dominguez, Holebas, Ibagaza, Machado, Pele, Papazoglou, Marcano, N'Dinga, Olaitan, Papadopoulos, Salino, Samaras, Saviola, Scepovic and Perez.

In the last couple of days we saw the largest Greek transfer to date when Kostas Mitroglou was sold to Fulham for €15m. The offer was too large to turn down to be honest and we've got €14.85m profit from him. Very nice and I wish him all the best in Fulham.

Obviously we need to replace him and his replacement comes in the shape of Paraguayan international Nelson Valdez. Valdez has played for Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund and Valencia and has a decent enough European pedigree. We're going to be supposedly loaning him for 6 months whilst also retaining an option to buy outright.

We are also looking at replacements for Vladimir Weiss and these will be one of either :-

Oscar Trejo, 25 - an Argentine with Italian Passport who is currently signed to Toulouse and rated at €2m.

Hernan Perez, 24 - a Paraguayan with Italian Passport who is currently signed to Villareal and rated at €1.6m.

Trejo seems to have the edge at the minute and we're looking to complete both signings before midnight tomorrow.

Marko Scepovic scored the only goal in our second leg of the greek cup. The win makes it 5-0 on aggregate and see us advance to the next stage. The game itself was a bit crappy and very low key from us.
I guess we'd already won the tie and barring some sort of catastrophic breakdown we were always going to get through. Megyeri played well out of the team but there is precious little else to say.
Still we won and I guess thats all that needs saying. Theres a few pictures underneath this text from the match.

Asteras Tripolis 0-1 Olympiacos
79' Scepovic

Olympiacos : Megyeri, Salino, Papadopoulos, Papazoglou, Bong, N'Dinga, Pele, Machado (65' Weiss), Fuster, Dominguez (57' Ibagaza), Mitroglou (76 'Scepovic).

In the last day or so, the Turks kicked out Rafik Djebbour and so he has returned to the club. Djebbour is probably oblivious to what he has done when he says that he wouldn't mind playing for us again. Oh, thats very fucking nice of you Rafik!. Tell you what, how about NO - FUCK OFF YOU MERCENARY BASTARD!!

Djebbour did his damndest to leave the club in the summer, publically courted Poutanas tis Vorra and then claimed he was out of contract and could move anywhere he liked. Now his season is down the shitter and he couldn't score three goals in the Turkish league he wants to come back. No thanks, send the prick off to Ukbekistan or somewhere. See how he likes it then - the ungrateful opportunistic little shite.

Our game in Komotini, Thrace was postponed by a day to allow the snow to be cleared. As for the match itself, it was surprisingly open. There was plenty of tempo during the first half but very few chances on goal - perhaps one real chance on goal for both sides. The amount of water held within the pitch wasn't helping us and the ball itself was moving very sluggishly. The half ended 0-0 and it was apparent that a quick rethink of tactics would be needed at halftime.
After about 15 minutes of the second half, it was apparent that a tactical change was needed and so we brought on Mitroglou as a second striker and sacrificed Greco to the bench.
The change didn't make any change to the scoreline in the short term and we still struggled getting any proper chances away against the packed Thracian defence. Eventually we got the goal with a 86th minute header from Contreras which gave us the victory today.
Not the best game but we had enough control of the match to give us the victory.

Panthrakikos 0-1 Olympiakos
86' Contreras

Olympiakos : Megyeri, Diakite, Manolas, Contreras, Holebas, Modesto (75' Fejsa), Maniatis, Greco (57' Greco), Machado, Abdoun, Djebbour

Vasillis Torosidis has left Olympiakos and joined Roma in a deal worth only half a million euros to our club. Torosidis had decided to leave the club recently and try his luck abroad after refusing to sign a new contract with the club.
The small amount for our captain is all we could manage after facing the possibility of the player leaving on a Bosman move in the summer.