Why didn’t Carlitos play in the Panathinaikos derby against Olympiakos at all?

Panathinaikos was better than Olympiakos in (almost) all “points” in the derby of the “eternals” on Sunday (16 January) and gave a much more convincing picture, but lacked the goal and above all the right shots and the final selection up front the “box” of Piraeus. At the same time, the top scorer of this year’s “Kleeblatt” remained on the bench (and) in the 95th minute of the game and was not used by Ivan Jovanovic at all, although he “joined” the game for the first time after his contact with Covid-19.

The absence of the Spanish striker and the time division at the top of the attack between Federico Makeda and Fotis Ioannidis was a topic of discussion between the friends of Panathinaikos (and not only) after the Clasico, as it was clear that the “greens” needed on the pitch an attacker with his degrees. But the question is only one: could the 31-year-old ‘hunter’ from Alicante play?

Jovanovic doesn’t attract them unless they are 100% ready

Carlitos was “off” for a week, he was the last of the five players to join the team program and only managed to complete two “normal” training sessions. Simply put, he didn’t have the strength and energy to start a match of this intensity. And Jovanovic proved with all the players coming from absence that he doesn’t put anyone on the pitch unless he judges that he is at 100%. This was reflected in his decision to let Hatzigiovanis out of action because he saw that in training he had yet to regain the strength and intensity he needed in his movements.

Could he play 10-15 minutes as happened with Ruben Pereth in Volos a week earlier? Probably yes, it could help for such a short time, especially as Panathinaikos had started to put more pressure on Olympiakos after (and) Mateos Vital’s entry. But there a very “difficult” decision had to be made: to make a change to the system, given the presence (and) of Ioannidis at the head of the attack, with a change from 4-3-3 to 4-4-1:1, which was used several times early in the season, with Carlitos in the position of ‘free’ forward behind the 21-year-old forward.

But that means a midfielder should be ‘removed’ from the equation and the system should be thrown into turmoil a lot at a time when Panathinaikos had been dominating in midfield with the presence of Ruben, Alexandropoulos, Vigiafanies, against Embilas and Kamaras, the ones of the many meters had returned.

In simple terms, he had to ‘spoil’ something that seemed to be working (very) well at the time and it was a given that would affect the image and balance of the game in the final ten minutes and allow Olympiakos to come out on top field to act . And that’s why Jovanovic finally decided not to overtake Karlitos on the field and insisted on the line-up and the people he had on the field at the moment…