Our ladies won 3-0 away in Vrilisia and now advance to the last 8 teams of the competition. We were very disciplined, played as a team and had a very good defence. These three important items were the backbone of the win yesterday. We now get to beat Poutanas Gios on Monday evening in Rentis.

Vrilisia 0-3 Olympiakos
1st Set : Vrilisia 15-25 Olympiakos
2nd Set : Vrilisia 14-25 Olympiakos
3rd Set : Vrilisia 19-25 Olympiakos

We qualified for the next stage of the Greek Cup last night with a 1-1 draw. The draw however was good enough to see us advance on away goals in the last four. We will then be drawn against the Vazeloi, Voulgaroi or OFI.

The game itself was reasonable from ourselves, we did the majority of the attacking and regularly threatened the Atromitos goal but we just couldn't get the elusive goal. Atromitos scored from an offside position in the 42nd minute but we got the equaliser from a penalty call in the 56th. It wasn't a brilliant game and the free stream was terrible quality which didn't help matters but we got through and that was enough for me.

Atromitos 1-1 Olympiakos
42' Tavlaridis / 56' Dominguez

Olympiakos : Megyeri, Salino, Manolas, Marcano, Bong, N'Dinga, Maniatis, Campbell (75' Samaras), Perez (90 +1' Machado), Dominguez (85' Saviola), Olaitan.

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 played the first leg of our latest cup tie last night, this time against Atromitos. Unfortunately for us, we ended up getting a 0-0 draw and now have to make sure that we at least achieve a score draw in the return leg.

This isn't the worst result in the world. We came close on quite a few occasions but Atromitos defended in depth (something they won't be able to do if they want to win) and had luck on their side. We should have perhaps grabbed at least one goal in the dying stages of the match but I guess it was not to be.
I can't complain too hard, we played decently enough. Atromitos were playing defensively and how the hell some of our shots on goal stayed out, I'll never know.

We have the return leg in the next few weeks (date to be determined) and we'll get the win if we play at the same level as we did last night.

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.

I haven't been able to write any updates or articles in the last ten days for various reasons (mainly hospital reasons) so I thought I'd best do a summary. During this time, we've played two matches - 1 cup and 1 league, winning the first and drawing the second. The cup game was played at home in Karaiskaki roughly seven days ago and saw us thrash Asteras Tripolis by a 4-1 scoreline. We now hold a three goal advantage ahead of the return leg and will almost certainly be anough to see us advance.
At the weekend, we drew against Atromitos 0-0 away in Peristeri. It was a slightly disappointing result for us but we're still clear at the top of the league by a vast amount so it's hardly a result which will cause us any serious problems. The most important thing from the match was the return of Kostas Mitroglou after a lengthy injury period.

More serious however is the case with Dimitris Siovas. He had been injured recently and had to undergo surgery in the last week. This means that he will be out of action for at least two months and reduces us to only two centrebacks on the team - Avraam (also seemingly not fit) and Manolas. At the weekend we had to use Bong as an emergency centreback because of the lack of cover. The rumours have it that we are desperately hunting for cover and probably will be signing someone this month. I'm not sure who this will be but I hope that we don't get ripped off by other clubs now that they know about our problems. So it would seem that the move to offload Carl Medjani was a little premature but on the other hand he was slow and had the same turning circle as the Titanic.

So this minor problem aside, it hasn't been the worst ten daysever. This weekend we play Levadiakos in Karaiskaki, lets see how we do then.

We played Panachaiki earlier this evening and managed to draw the game 1-1 despite having a man advantage and performing very badly on the pitch. In a game we will want to forget very quickly, we conceded the first goal of the game in only the 4th minute of the match. After the goal, Panachaiki never threatened again but we never got ourselves organised or playing with any particular passion. The expulsion of Voskopoulos in the 37th minute didn't improve the game for us and we still struggled all the way to halftime.

The second half wasn't much of an improvement although the goal by Fetfatzidis was a superb effort made with assistance from Holebas and Mitroglou. After the equaliser there was no marked improvement in our play, we still had trouble in creating chances and our efforts were played too long or too wide from the goalmouth. Episodes from the Panachaiki fans stopped the game in the 83rd minute and although the game briefly restarted again it was then permanently stopped four minutes after.

The game was a terrible performance from our team and possibly the worst seen under Jardim so far. Fuster as Captain was unimpressive whilst Machado continued to underperform in his games. There was no passion at all in our game and thank god we can now break for Christmas.

Panachaiki 1-1 Olympiakos
4' Gourtsas
57' Fetfatzidis

Olympiakos: Megyeri, Diakite, Holebas, Contreras, Papazoglou, Fejsa (46' Djebbour) Greco, Machado (58' Ibagaza) Fuster, Fetfatzidis, Mitroglou

We travelled North to the bourdello of Toumba for todays game against the Bulgarians of PAOK. As it promised, it was a lively match with us working hard to control possession and also chase the ball when we had to. Eventually our hard work and persistance broke down the Voulgaroi defence and it was Djebbour with a cannon of a shot who opened the scoring. Djebbour's goal marked his 9th in 8 matches and possibly the best of those 9 scored so far. An absolutely superb shot to put the filth chasing the game and shut up the catamites in the stadium.

We should have increased our lead during the second half but profligacy from Machado wasted a couple of chances whilst Fuster had a good shot on goal but found his effort and a little more power would have probably doubled the scoreline. Fuster had another superb chance to score later in the match but managed, inexplicably, to fire his shot wide of goal. The Voulgaroi managed to steal a draw right at the end of the game following three fairly insipid substitutions which failed to address any shortcomings in the teams play and removed any sort of attacking flair.

Rubbish performances from Machado and Fuster which unfortunately were never addressed, poor also from Modesto and Torosidis - However a good performance from Djebbour who scored the goal.

Voulgaroi 1-1 Olympiakos
27' Djebbour
88' Athanasiadis

Olympiakos : Carroll, Torosidis, Manolas, Siovas, Holebas, Maniatis, Modesto (77' Fejsa), Machado, Fuster, Abdoun (87' Greco), Djebbour (71' Mitroglou).

Olympiakos made a very good performance in the mens polo quarter final against Panionios eventually winning the match 16-7. The win ensures that we go onto the final-4 competition in Argostoli on the 18th and 19th May.

The scores are :-

Panionios 7-16 Olympiakos
1st Octalepta : Panionios 3-5 Olympiakos
2nd Octalepta : Panionios 0-4 Olympiakos
3rd Octalepta : Panionios 1-2 Olympiakos
4th Octalepta : Panionios 3-5 Olympiakos

Introduction
Todays match against Atromitos marked the end of a successfull season for Olympiakos and also the first of two times we would be playing Atromitos in the space of 7 days (we play them in the cup on Saturday 28th). The team we turned out was not the strongest available and several players were rested in advance of the cup. The game itself was more or less a dead match for us although we wouldn't particularly want to lose the match either.

First Half
The match didn't start brightly for us but we worked to take possession of the ball in the centre of the field, and after the first ten minutes we had started to control the game more confidently. Our first chance on goal came in the eleventh minute from a short range Diogo header which was unfortunately aimed directly at the keeper. In general, we were playing well and pressuring the opposition goalmouth but without scoring as yet and still susceptible to the odd Atromitos counter attack.

We continued with our aggressive gameplay, bringing the ball closer to the Atromitos net with Fetfatzidis having a fine effort saved off the line in the 30th minute. Fetfatzidis was also a very frustrating player to watch with his insistance of preferring to dribbling through three or four players rather than pass to a free teammate. We were almost caught out with an Atromitos counter attack in the 34th minute when Mitroglou broke through our defence but managed to recover when the same player slipped over in the box.
Nevertheless we continued with the pressure and came close again in the 41st minute with a shot from the box of the box courtesy of Fejsa which made the keeper stretch to push wide. This was the last action of note in the first half.

Second Half
The second half was only a minute old when we won a penalty for a foul on Diogo in the box. Fuster took the penalty but saw his effort saved (which was a good result since Diogo dived for the penalty in the first place). This did not stop us from keeping up the pressure on the Atromitos goal though and we kept a good attacking rate on the opposition area throughout the half. Fuster again came close in the 60th minute after an elaborate pass from Monje but saw his shot saved.
A minute later though and we scored the opening goal which we had been threatening all match. A free kick from 30 metres out was lobbed into the box, it eluded everyone apart from Marcano on the far side of the box. Marcano took the opportunity to shoot into the net from the tight angle and open the scoring.

Fetfatzidis scored the second goal after we managed to break through their defence with two players to their final defender. Giannis Fetfatzidis composed himself then lobbed the keeper beautifully to double the scoreline. Despite what I wrote earlier it was a lovely finish (but I still wish he'd pass more than trying to dribble umpteen opponents). Atromitos tried to instantly reply through Epstein and Tatos but luckily we stayed defensively firm to stop their chances (and even clear the ball off the line).

In the last period of the game, Atromitos came at us to try and get one goal back and save some face since they had been on the back foot for most of the match. We tended to be defending well but we were also penetrated a couple of times which led to Potouridis coming onto the pitch and replacing Makoun (giving us 5 at the back). We ended playing the game out in this formation and wound the clock down to the end of the match.

Summary
We had made a decent enough win after todays win although some of the plays did help remind of the thin nature of the squad and I still have some doubts on whether the likes of Diogo and Monje are good enough for anything but backup status. Fuster as well seemed wasteful on the ball and it may be that his injury earlier in the season has affected his gameplay even after regaining fitness. Still, it was a competent enough win and a good prelude to next weekends all important cup final.

Atromitos 0-2 Olympiakos
61' Marcano
66' Fetfatzidis

Olympiakos (Valverde) :- Carroll, Modesto, Mellberg , Papazoglou, Marcano, Fetfatzidis, Fejsa, Makoun (82' Potouridis), Monje, Fuster (75' Orbaiz), Diogo