Subject: [NT] Greece

Sokker Greece
Greece is a relatively new Sokker nation, entering their 5th season. In their first season they participated in Qualifications and were in the same group as Canada. They have shown good growth and now have ~350 users. They are not ranked particularly high (5th seed in our qualifying group) and their ranking seems reasonably fair.

Greece NT
Their roster has progressed a fair bit since the teams last met. All areas have improved. They have a great young keeper in Aristromenis Kapsis. Fragkiskos Pasas seems a capable defender, and Aris Haralampidis adds some style and experience to the midfield. Tho these are decent players, the problem is depth – they don’t have consistency across the positions. Their strikers are not scary. Their top defensive midfielder (Ntermis Poyrsanidis) is suspended for this weekend’s match.

I am not familiar with their manager, and don’t know much about his past association with the Greek team.

Head-to-Head
Greece is comparable in goal (especially due to Parker’s form). Canada has a significant advantage at all other positions.

Previous Meetings
The teams met twice 4 seasons ago in Qualifications. Canada won the first 7-0 (hattrick from Giacomi), the second 9-0 (4 from Moreau).

This Match
Canada will be looking not only to win, but to build a strong goal differential. The loss to Lithuania makes winning the group unlikely, but we can put pressure on them with a good GD. (GD will also be important for inter-group rankings).

I've prepared two tactics. Any loyal Canadian manager who has input (or just wants to know what I'm thinking) should feel free to send me a Sokker mail.

Managers of participating players will be contacted shortly.

Underway against Greece. Thanks to Slavko, Orian, and Raskal for their input.

I kind of think this is Greece’s manager’s 3rd season at the helm. Could be wrong. If I’m right, he’s shown some fairly flexible tactics over his matches. Normally I would expect a team that’s outgunned to play 5 at the back and turtle, but that doesn’t seem to be this manager’s MO. My best guess is a 451 similar to what was used against Ireland in the last round of qualifying.

I had originally planned a 343, but have decided to go with a 442. In large part this is because of the possibility of the 451 from them - I’m not that frightened of their wide mids generating offense, but a narrow defense would allow them to run down the sidelines, eating a lot of time. My thinking is that 4 in the back should result in quicker ball recovery.

A 442 may not sound sexy, but it is a very aggressive 442. The strikers aren’t intended to push the envelop, but everyone else is. The line is even further upfield then last week. The flank defenders join the attack where possible. The midfielders are positioned primarily for offense, leaving ball recovery to the high back-line.

So we’ll see. My goal differential hopes may be inflated - we beat them 7-0 and 9-0 4 seasons ago - and they’ve improved a lot since then.

LINE-UP

Parker
Bradshaw, Mayard, Fichaud, Villanueva
Caron (O’Hara - 60), Lavrynenko, Iginla (Klukowski - 65), Omar
Amado, Wang (Biron - 80, conditional)

BENCH

Clemens
Dehere

Wang takes penalties.
Freekicks are open.
Omar covers the back-line in case of red card.

An acceptable result. Lithuania will almost certainly do better against them. Getting at least a draw last week would have been huge. I can't see us keeping up in goal differential.

Greek manager did drop 5 back and jammed the middle with 2 defensive midfielders. Also moved his defensive line up from last week which was a good call - got some offsides, and didn't surrender many breakaways (tho Biron got a couple in his late appearance). Was a good approach from them.

I'm not sure that the 343 would have been more effective. Maybe. The central-ish striker would have been well masked by the defense. I was happy having the 4 at the back - Simandis was a handful for Villanueva as it was - would have been worse with 3 as Villa would have had more lateral closing to do.

Amado did not show his usual spark. I expected him to embarrass a few Greek defenders, but it didn't really happen. His striking was poor. Iginla had a reasonably difficult time with his defender, but generated more chances then left side.

Thought the two central midfielders played very well. Omar in particular made good decisions and passed with some accuracy. Canada's ball movement in general was quick and crisp - looked pretty good, especially considering the "short" field with two aggressive defenses.

O'Hara and Biron both brought some spark off the bench, which was nice to see.

Greece Statistics.

Interesting to see the stats. Shows that Caron quietly had a pretty nice game. 28 pass attempts from Villanueva - much more play down our right side.

Also shows Amado's striking maybe wasn't that bad - half his shots were on target. Still wasn't the game I was hoping for from him.

Result in the other important group match was interesting. Won't post a spoiler in case some are thinking of checking it out.

Ack. Just noticed when I formatted the sheet, it rounded off the pass made and tackle made column. So some of the %s seem screwy.

The %s are correct (Fichaud for example was 4.5/10 passing for 45%).

Well done for the comfortable victory, and getting on track after those red cards last week.

Nice match Seca, would have been nice with some more goals. I guess you can count on that with Bolivia and even Bosnia.

Hard to say. The 4,5,6 seeds in our group aren't made of paper (Viet Nam 0 - France 19 elsewhere today). Even with solid wins our goal differential is going to lag some of the weaker groups. But we'll do our best. :)

A good game and a good result. All of your time, Seca, is appreciated. It is definitley creating more interest in the world cup in Canada.
The classic diamond 4-4-2 worked well. Amado is really prolific - 13 shots and all created good scoring chances.
The Canadian team passing was crisp and effective. I wish that my team could show flashes of one touch passing like that.

Wow the Greece tactic was pretty solid. Very smart keeping five at the back. Amando could have had a couple in the first 15 minutes. I thought that header at the 16 mark was going in! lol & his little blunder at the 29th was odd. Not sure why he couldn't get a hold of the ball.

Sismanidis passing was awful I thought. He had a couple of crosses but at the beginning of the match he kept kicking the ball out of bounds.

Nice result Seca :)

Line-up is set. I've contacted the managers of starting players. The way form is currently, the update tonight won't affect the starting 11.

I haven't selected the bench yet. Form update will have bearing on those decisions.

Managers of the reserves have also been contacted now. :)

Lithuania - Austria match has been played. (Don't read further if you plan to watch it.) :)

Overall, the game was similar to the Canada - Austria match-ups. Except that Lithuania managed to score their first two chances before the Austrian keeper became a save-machine. Austria had few chances, and they were low %, but they converted 1 and managed to keep the game close until late.

Austria picked up a couple of yellows, but no suspensions for BiH. Lithuania lost a defender, but with their depth I doubt it will have an impact next week.

More spoilers. Read with caution.

Already been a couple wacky results today. Italy (better striking, keeper) played 2/3 of the match in New Zealand's end, and generated 7-8 close range shots, but scored none. New Zealand managed 3 long shots, and converted 2 of them for the win.

Just watching Scotland - Israel now, but it's match stats are ugly. Scotland's luck in qualifying has rivaled Canada's. The draw result is potentially very helpful to Canada.

Good luck today! I'll be supporting Canada :)