The excellent additions of Bakabou and Samasekos give Olympiakos the energy they lacked

What is happening at Olympiakos is unprecedented. No fan of any other team has experienced it before because it has never happened before. At the same time, Marcelo, James Rodríguez are in the stands as new transfer acquisitions and the administration is making a transfer delimitation by acquiring, in addition to the world-class star Marcelo, James also the Bakabu, Samaseku, important for the emergence of a whole , Kasami, the field presents itself as a patchwork quilt .

He didn’t play the game

A team that didn’t even have the chance to play the game against Freiburg. The fan is happy with the transfers, but on the field, the image that Olympiacos had was one of the worst in its history.

Certainly there were tougher defeats, but I can’t think of any other game where Olympiacos wasn’t competitive, even for a short period. The truth is Corberan’s team didn’t play the game, they couldn’t get into it and fight.

Crescendo of transcriptional support

However, the truth is also that this image was expected by the organization of the team. The transfer crescendo in mid-September, which has nothing to do with just Marcelo, James, but with the creation of a new team.

This was because there was an absolute understanding that things were not going well. All the conditions were in place for Olympiacos to endure a disastrous year and the administration decided to play their own card and not stand by and watch.

Nobody can deny that it is not sensible to fill the squad with footballers, most of whom will start in mid-September.

It’s obvious the side haven’t worked properly over the last year, that the squad isn’t what the club needs to achieve its goals and that something drastic is needed.

The administration decided to play its own card

It’s one of those moments where it takes some drastic decisions to change something that seems hard to undo with the facts at hand. Olympiakos management understood that the squad needs a radical change and a reinforcement where the competition cannot follow.

She decided to play her own card hard. That is, hitting the area where there is no opponent. To take advantage of the window left open by the Super League, he is extending the date he can make transfers to September 15 and within a period during the current season to start a new team.

The ultimate goal is to win the championship

Note that players acquired after Marcelo are not eligible to play in Europe and there are many of them. Which clearly means that Olympiakos’ ultimate goal is not to lose this year’s title.

Don’t get me wrong, the specific path is neither rational nor necessary for this election to come about, but things got to the point where admitting “we’re going to lose the championship” necessitated massive transfers and the formation of a new one teams.

They know that this year’s championship still has a long way to go. There are playoffs, so there’s a chance that any lost ground, both in points and in the team’s draw, can be made up.

There is the reality of the glamor stars that Marcelo, Hames, the reality of the two truly remarkable transfers Bakabou, Samasekou, who signed for Olympiakos among others on the same day, and the reality of the stadium.

But there are two other very different realities. The image Olympiakos had against Freiburg and the image they have in the Greek league. Also considering the two lost LaLiga games with Asteras and Volos, it is clear that Olympiacos can handle the games in the domestic league even in the current situation.

This reality can be reached by footballers with the quality of Marcelo, Hames and the energy and intensity that Bakabou, Samaseku will give to the team to bring Olympiacos back to the top.

It’s not necessary for it to happen, but it’s a very likely possibility and with that in mind, Olympiacos management have decided not to give away the title but to take the final step for the team to retain its role as a powerhouse in the game Greek soccer. Wrong decisions were definitely made to force Olympiacos to stand at this point and essentially burn Europe down.

Excellent additions

Of course, everything would have turned out differently if this roster had been drawn up in good time. However, this was not possible for various reasons. The administration has managed to play its own card well. That is, to use its ability to negotiate higher numbers than the competition.

He brought in footballers who, in order to convince them to move to Greece, would have had to complete the transfer window in the top leagues. Also in the case of the outstanding Bakabu, Samaseku, some time of the league has passed and it has been understood by the clubs and the players that the players are not counted as key members in the playing teams, so it will be better if someone else paid their contracts.

We’re talking about two exceptional cases that offer exactly the element that Olympiacos needs reinforcement. To bring freshness, runs and a game of high pace and intensity to the squad.

In 2018 it cost 40 million

We recently saw Bakabou with Marseille against PAOK. Playing at the velodrome in the first half, he tormented PAOK’s stoppers with his runs, leading them into errors and helping to bring down the pitch during that period.

They took a breather at half-time when he left with a minor bruise and was replaced by Niang. Bakabou went to China for €40m in January 2018 after three years of orgy at Villarreal.

return to Europe

After a four-year absence in Europe, he returned as a free agent on behalf of Marseille. He knowingly filled in gaps in a team that had forward Milik, who people liked, and manager Sampaoli had openly stated that he wanted to use Paget as a forward.

Given that, there would be no room for Bakabou. However, in 12 games, 7 of them as a substitute, he managed it and scored 4 important goals in the league. Sampaoli gave him 356 minutes, Bakabu scored 4 goals, it wasn’t bad.

He runs, has energy, pushes and scores

We’re talking about a footballer who scored a total of 47 goals in 105 games during the three years of his glorious career at Villarreal. In a team that always has 4 forwards playing 4-4-2 and want them to start from the flank and make runs.

That’s what Bakabu’s weapon is. The runs, the energy, the stride and the pressure he puts on the opponent and combines it all with an effective execution.

Bakabou had played in Turkish football, which is close to Greek football in terms of capacity, in 2015 at the age of 24, a year before joining Villarreal, scoring 21 goals in one season in all competitions.

He was trained in indoor football

He has trained in teams asking forward to use the space. He’s a forward who’s comfortable finding opposing defenses high up and using his speed. He’s effective under high pressure and that’s what the PAOK friends found out recently.

It will of course be a weapon in all derbies and in Europe if the red and white continue after the groups. It also allows its manager to use a two-forward formation in many domestic games. Bakabu is a serious addition, a much higher quality option on the roster in a spot Aboubakar Kamara filled earlier in the season.

Of course, it’s not out of the question that he can prove he can carry the weight of the team’s first forward. He has higher achievements than Wei-Joe Huang. The only negative point is that he is used to starting his movement higher than Olympiacos will need him in most Greek league games. Of course, it is not excluded that he will be trained and adapted immediately.

He plays the position differently than the midfielders who have been added in recent years

Diadie Samasekou is the footballer who was missing from the Olympiacos axis. He plays the position very differently from the central midfielders the team has had in recent years.

He doesn’t carry the ball with long passes, he tends to run it to get free, but he excels at his defensive duties in front of the two stoppers. Especially at this time Olympiacos desperately needs such a player. It may not fit in another Olympiacos, but in the Olympiacos that we are currently seeing it is necessary to add such a footballer.

Samasekou has the qualities that the Olympiacos axis lacks

A dynamic midfielder who attacks the ball and plays with very high intensity. Samaseku is tireless, he swallows many kilometers with and without the ball in every game.

I’ve written many times that the Embila-Kane duo was dysfunctional and needed to be broken. Management has acquired a player with the qualities this duo lacks and probably the ideal lock needed by Huang, who expects many games at 8 position.

He fights to regain possession immediately and to keep the defense together

His weapon is his ability to see where the ball is going, combined with his speed that allows him to pull off a lot of clean steals in every game an average of 2.5 steals per 90 minutes and 2.8 successful tackles per 90 minutes.

He’s a workman, a team player who helps hold a group together by providing dynamism and energy, following the pressing and keen to regain possession on the fly.

He has a different game in development than what Olympiacos fans are used to, as he is used to running the ball instead of carrying it with big balls like the midfielders who have played for Olympiacos in recent years . We’re talking about a purely defensive midfielder who brings everything to one point on the field. He is not stable in his position, but he makes sure to be dominant from the limits of his own area until he gets 1/3 of the opponent.

That year he fell behind in the rotation and requested a transfer

Samasekou rose through Salzburg and is an integral part of the Malian national team. In 2017 he was named the best player in his country. In 2020, Salzburg sold her to Hoffenheim for €14m, at a time when there was a lot of interest from French teams as well.

In practice, he saw Hoffenheim as a stepping stone to either joining a top team in Germany or jumping up to the Premier League. That year he was left behind in new coach Andre Breitenreiter’s rotation, particularly after the arrival of Grisha Premel from Union Berlin.

So far he has made two brief appearances as a substitute in the Bundesliga. The still 26-year-old is highly motivated and wanted to leave immediately when he saw the situation that had arisen. Olympiacos took advantage of this opportunity and acquired him at the last moment.

With new signings Bakabou, Samaseku, the red-whites move into midfield, attacking the element that their squad lacks more than anything else, speed and intensity. Of course, everything happens in a weird, unique way, but the goal is one. Do not hand over the domestic scepters.

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