PAOK was the team that was promoted to the “16” of the Conference League from November. Olympiacos was the one who went to the “32” with abbreviated procedures. The “Red and Whites”, as much as their progress caused discussion in the group about what they had to do at least, they did it emphatically.

They left Backa Topola in fourth place, took third place and continued abroad. They leave the group with a big night against West Ham, a tragic evening in Germany, two stupid results (with the elimination of Freiburg’s Karaiskakis and Topola), a quiet defeat in London and the relentless dominance of the Serbs in this crucial game.

The game is important for many reasons and you will read them below. What they need to keep in Piraeus for now is that they build an even better team for the next phase of the competition, which they will find themselves in for the first time in their history (well, the conference wasn’t many years ago). the life of footballers).

What I consider to be the “Red and White” is the tension they seemed to have on their faces, perhaps after what has happened in the last 20 days, which is not a little. Let’s not forget that Olympiacos entered its empty stadium to play against Batsko, after the five in Freiburg and the Gela in Volos…

Parameters and carvalial

When the Piraeus entered this battle they had to face various conditions. Firstly, they are better than Backa Topola. They literally killed themselves in Serbia. They had two outcomes to work with, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

And anyone who has objections to this should also contact Ivan Jovanovitch. In addition, the stadium was empty, a decision that provoked the ire of the union, because in addition to the measures taken for everyone in the league, in the case of Olympiakos (and only for PAE), there was also a… sign ( I think that it rightly bothered the organization what to do with a European game and as much as teams always try to keep all this outside of the training centers, in the case of the port team it wasn’t easy because you understand, that the discussions never end.

In the story as I describe to you the coach’s debut, also take into account the fact that there was a competitive irregularity due to the abstention of the referees, which all Greek teams showed at the beginning of their games.

Carvalhal entered a formation that his predecessor had used as a base. The Portuguese is neither the first nor the last to achieve this. And the team here, goodbye, entered. Ah, with one difference from Martinez’s tactics.

The front ones ran a lot. Constantly changing positions and ready to cover all areas with the freshest player at the moment. Even El Kabi was appointed right midfielder by Carvalial when Fortounis had stayed ahead in the phase and was exhausted from an earlier attempt. In general, the “Red and Whites” worked well, they were persistent and motivated, it was clear that they wanted to finish earlier and that’s what they did…

Golar…

They also did it with collars. Olympiacos Piraeus secured its ticket early. Rodney rolled to a cross that El Kambi was able to cross. The Moroccan scored another nice goal, but it was slightly offside. Podense’s 2-0 was the result of a terrible performance from the Portuguese and… he struggled to win 3-0. Because quite simply, on the second goal, Podense “hit” the opposite window with his left side, while in the third goal he took the ball from Fortounis in the right timing, made two feints, a collection and sent the ball into the goalkeeper’s closed corner.

Lazetis knew his team came to Piraeus to win. He did better at West Ham than at Olympiakos. But as I wrote to you above, the people of Piraeus had several reasons to be strong and determined.

Amazing game

And the game may have been… cleaned up early, but the spirit hasn’t waned. We also saw a crazy three minutes with the own goal (from Retsu’s header), but also Ortega’s “potato” that made Batsko 4-1. The Serbs contributed to it being a sloppy game because they didn’t care about the result as they lost ground. They continued playing. In other words, they did not do what Olympiakos had done in Germany when it collapsed under the shadow of humiliation.

Topola tried to play and not only that. The guys who stayed at ten scored a goal. And not an easy conclusion. Cirkovic got rid of the red defense. He forced six players to chase him, “emptied” Ese and placed Paschalakis perfectly.

Olympiacos scored a nice fifth goal with El Arabi and somewhere everything started to go much calmer, even if the home team continued to visit the large opponent’s territory… The two coaches also made the other changes (Richards also got in touch). a little) and the process ended in a modest ceremony.

Now the… baptism

For Carvalial, “Welcome to Greece” is essentially Monday. Even though the stadiums have been empty for two months, the “Red and Whites” still have to play in Serres. And when Bacska Topola scored two goals without batting an eyelid and without giving the impression that he could be worried, you understand that Carvalhal still has to make some adjustments to achieve its first championship victory. By then he will get to know his players better and we will see if he changes faces or formations. For now, they claim in the port that they have returned to the knockout games of the European competition…

On game night on Thursday, Pantelis Vlachopoulos will comment on the European battles of the Big 4 together with Themis Kaisaris and Pantelis Diamantopoulos.