Carvalhal’s first fight will decide Olympiacos’ European future: this is the plan for success

Olympiacos will play a very crucial game on Thursday (December 14th, 10 p.m., COSMOTE SPORT 5 HD and LIVE Sportish). The red and whites welcome Batska Topola to Karaiskakis on matchday 6 of the Europa League groups.

It is a game that will decide Piraeus’ European future, and all this comes with Carlos Carvalhal’s debut on the Olympiacos bench. The scenarios for the red and white are simple.

They need a win or a draw against the Serbs to finish third in the group and advance to the Conference League’s Round of 16 play-offs. The focus and weight of the last few days has been on this crucial game.

Carlos Carvalhal mentioned this in the match press conference: “In the last 10 days the focus has been solely on winning the game, you can’t change everything in 10 days and it would be stupid for anyone to believe that.”

The Portuguese coach will actually use the Red and Whites’ existing “base”. The changes are not expected to be major. Finally, Carvalhal identified the points in which Olympiacos excelled and made sure to work on the parts that showed weaknesses.

From his first days in Greece, the new Piraeus coach has focused on his team’s pressing, but also on reacting to defensive changes.

Once he has achieved his first goal of ensuring European continuity, Carvalhal will work on other parts of his philosophy. Of course the games in the Stoiximan Super League will play a big role, but so will the short break over the holidays.

Without major changes to Carvalhal’s plan

As for the 11 players Carlos Carvalhal will field, the Portuguese coach will follow the beaten path. That means he is unlikely to leave the 4-2-2 that the Red-Whites have used in recent months.

Paschalakis will be under the posts, with Retso and Doi in front of him, while Ibora is also available. Rodney will be positioned on the right side of the defense and Ortega on the left. Ese and Kamara will form the duo on the axis.

Fortounis and Podense, who were Olympiacos’ best team in the first leg in Serbia, will line up on the wings while Masoura moves close to El Kaabi. A deployment has not been announced, but Stevan Jovetic, who has recently been plagued by injury, is expected to be available.

The injured Scarpa, Freire and Poroso are definitely out, while Biancone and Brinic are not entitled to take part in the Europa League groups.