How the young Fantiga and Kitsos won the ticket to Europe

The presence of Costas Manolas and Gary Rodrεςguez in Olympiacos’ European list for the games against Atalanta in the Europa League play-offs has long been ‘suspended’. Pedro Martins decided in mid-December that the Greek centre-back would replace Svetozar Markovic and the Cape Verde international would replace Ahmed Hassan on loan from Konyaspor.

As a result, only the third spot in AD’s list, which would go to UEFA, remained open, as well as two more in BD’s list. It is recalled that Olympiacos were entitled to three changes in the AD list in relation to the one declared in the group stage of the tournament.

The third lucky winner was Badiugu Fadiga, who won the race against the more experienced Mamadou Kane, Joao Carvalho and Costa Fortouni.

Why did Pedro Martins choose the France central midfielder?

For one thing, the 21-year-old (Paris-born, with Malian roots) footballer, although he’s only been training at Renti for two weeks, immediately won the Portuguese coach’s trust with his image in training. It is no coincidence that the Red and White coach used it almost immediately, benched it in the derby with PAOK in Toumba and used it in the final minutes of the game with Panetolikos in Karaiskakis. Fadiga seemed fit for training (despite not having any games on his feet in the first half of the season at Paris Saint-Germain) and immediately adapted to the Olympic environment.

Secondly, the Portuguese Fadiga preferred Kane because he had the former available earlier and has already formed an opinion through training. The Guinea international made his debut in Olympiacos’ mission just yesterday (he was on the bench in the game against Panetolikos), and in two weeks the Red-Whites have their first game against Atalanta.

Someone will say that Kane is more experienced and comes from a full season with Neftsi Baku and the Guinea national team and he could have taken third place in the list, but for Martins to make that decision he had the reasons for it. He obviously wanted to have an extra player available to play in the 8th, 10th and winger positions since Kane plays mostly in the 6th and 8th positions.

Third, Badiougou was judged better prepared by Martins, both by Carvalho, who played against Xanthi with the Olympiakos second-team to gain rhythm, and by Fortounis, who is now slowly preparing to take the opening minutes of participation after his many months to take the injury. and

Fourth, Martins is covered with the selection of Fadiga should Kude (who has been added to the list) be awarded in the coming days as there is interest in acquiring him from a Turkish team.

Kitsos was not chosen at random

Regarding the list BD, Fotis Kitsos and Thanasis Papadoudis took the places of George Stamoulis and Nikita Nikolis. These decisions may have become small, but for the former it is important.

That Kitsos, who turns 19 in a month and a half, has overtaken 21-year-old Karbovnik in the first-team is obvious.

Martin’s decision to put Kitso behind Reabciuk in the game against Panetolikos (in fact, he used the left-hand Greek footballer in the final minutes) was no coincidence. And possibly the boy is on the bench and in play with Ionikos.

It is recalled what Olympiacos told UEFA about the games with Atalanta as follows:

list AD: Vatslik, Androutsos, Ba, Bouchalakis, M. Kamara, A. Kamara, Cisse, Fantiga, El Arabi, Kounde, Lala, Manolas, Masouras, Lopez, Ambila, Oniekourou, Papadopoulos, Papastriokou, Ron, Valbouena and Brusai.

List BD: Karargyris, Papadoudis, Kasemi, Kitsos, Liatsos, Marinos, Doi, Sapountzis, Sourlis and Voilis.