News that’s not so “new” anymore (or everything that has happened the last 6 months)

By: Peter Katsiris | December 17th, 2009

Temuri Ketsbaia_Olympiacos track suit This might be the hardest part on the road to recovery: recapping everything that has happened since I fell off the face of the earth. There are some pretty big headlines, and then the meaningless ones, and then the sensationalized news stories – that are nothing but the adjective out in front.

Nevertheless, the list of stories and their blurbs – one that should be found in the format a blog-roll and not a mercy post like this – are all there. So take the jump and relive the summer (an early-fall) that was at Olympiacos’ Giorgos Karaiskakis Stadium with news regarding the manager’s position and the employees (or players), of course.

Summer Specials: What we got and what we lost this past summer

Out: Paraskevas Antzas (retired), Fernando Belluschi (FC Porto), Predrag Djordjevic (retired), Konstantinos Lambropoulos (Asteras Tripolis), Sebastian Leto (Panathinaikos), Konstantinos Mendrinos (PAS Giannina), Christos Patsatzoglou (Omonia).

The retirement of club captain Predrag Djordjevic was a bitter pill to swallow, and fans nearly choked when it was revealed Sebastian Leto refused to remain at the club as a deal between the Argentine’s actual owners, Liverpool, and the Greek Champions never materialized.

Predrag Djordjevic_celebration Refutes over the situation soon transformed into death threats as Leto then signed on for rivals Panathinaikos. With a grain or two of salt, fans were under the assumption that club president Sokratis Kokkalis was planning a major sweep in the transfer market.

Nothing of the sort happened, and the prospects for a transfer to replace not Leto but the legendary Djordjevic were far from fancied and considered a joke. Troubles were compounded when Fernando Belluschi was sold to Portuguese side FC Porto, and regular starter Christos Patsatzoglou was packaged off on a free transfer to Omonia Nicosia FC.

Meanwhile, Kostas Mendrinos, who never lived up to expectation nor did he get a chance as his role with the club was limited in the defensive-midfield position especially considering the success of Ieroklis Stoltidis, was released and shortly thereafter he signed with promoted club PAS Giannina.

Last but definitely not least, Paraskevas Antzas also hung up his boots, but as synopsis from the imports department of the Olympiacos transfer task-force will suggest, this was the one position that was ultimately covered and arguably improved upon – no offense re Paraskeva.

In: Raul Bravo (loan return from Numancia), Matt Derbyshire (Blackburn Rovers), Giorgos Katsikogiannis (loan return from Levadiakos), Cristian Ledesma (loan return from San Lorenzo), Enzo Maresca (Sevilla) Olof Mellberg (Juventus), Urko Pardo (on loan from Rapid Bucharest), Jaouad Zairi (Asteras Tripolis).

Olof Mellberg_Olympiacos training Yes, the club took a huge step in acquiring the veteran leadership of Sweden’s true Viking Olof Mellberg. Unfortunately, aside from that move, there was hardly any other eye-catching moves from the summer transfer window.

There was the acquisition of Enzo Maresca, the Italian was eloquent during his tenure as captain with Sevilla – a run which included two UEFA Cup titles – and was looked upon as an upgrade for Patsatzoglou. But needless to say, many were saddened by Patsa’s departure as the Greece international was surely a fan favourite, at least when he played impressively.

Jaouad Zairi was initially seen as a great alternative to MVP Luciano Galletti, but when a replacement for Djole didn’t come and Leto left for Liverpool before signing up for Panathinaikos, and finally when Belluschi was sold off to Portugal, it was clear that Zairi was going to feature not as an option off the bench but a likely starter opposite to Galletti.

Matt Derbyshire, the Englishman who was supposed to be the replacement for Darko Kovacevic after the Serbian striker was forced to retire due to a life-threatening heart condition, emerged as one of the club’s heroes of the epic Greek Cup win over AEK Athens in which he scored two goals after coming on as a second half substitute. On that note, his services were a must have ahead of the new season, and after a bit of negotiations with Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce, Derbyshire’s services were acquired.

But unlike the sensible nature the club displayed in luring Derbyshire to stay in Greece, the addition of goalkeeper Urko Pardo was bizarre. Instead of promoting prospect Leonidas Panagopoulos from the youth team, the club decided to take up Pardo on a loan deal from Rapid Bucharest. The former Iraklis FC ‘keeper did impress during his stay in Greece, but arguably lost his appeal in Romania. The move was seen as cover for a position the club is not too worried about at the moment. With the safest hands in the Greek Super League, Antonis Nikopolidis is without a doubt the best shot-stopper in the Greece and arguably the best goalkeeper the country has seen since the late 1900s. So really it doesn’t matter who backstops Clooney, unless someone is there, and surely Pardo is not as bad as Pavel Kovac — although the thought of Olympiacos holding onto Michalis Sifakis is nothing but a daydream.

Then there were the loan recalls as Raul Bravo, Cristian Ledesma, and starlet Giorgos Katsikogiannis returned to the roster from the respective loan spells.

In conclusion, the imports from the summer session were far from what was required. The need for a left-winger was not fulfilled, nor was another striker despite the deal to make Derbyshire’s acquisition permanent.

Hiring Coach “K” is not okay!

So we hired Temuri Ketsbaia as our head coach after Ernesto Valverde decided not to renew a contract, and instead see his reputation rot with Villarreal CF in Spain. The latter, in a rather selfish manner, stymied any negotiations with club president Sokratis Kokkalis as he continued to put off talks for a contract extension in hopes that a season-long rumour suggesting a return to Spanish football after just one year in Piraeus would come true. Well, it did and he set off to pilot the Yellow Submarine.

In his place, Kokkalis decided to hire Ketsbaia, the man who masterminded our exit from the UEFA Champions League last season when we lost to Anorthosis Famagusta FC in the third qualifying round. The Georgian, with his tacky wardrobe that got an upgrade from the ugly faded blue jeans and polo shirts which he tucked into his jeans for what seems to be the general tactics of an obese man looking to hide a few extra pounds by trying to look jacked instead of extra chunky, arrived in Piraeus despite much protest from the club’s loyal supporters.

Sporting the club’s PUMA training wear instead of handy-me-down jeans and polos, Ketsbaia took up the role as Olympiacos bench-boss with his shaven head under the microscope – which soon shifted directly under the hot lights of the Karaiskaki stadium. While he opted to inject a youthful base into the Olympiacos line-up, Ketsbaia’s tactics, which warranted in uneasy and hard-to-watch slim-margins of victory, were not of the club’s standards.

So once the Olympiacos board realized Ketsbaia was an awful choice – in the aftermath of a 0-0 draw at home to Kavala or a few months later than the rest of the us – the Georgian coach was out on the street looking for his way back to Tbilisi while Bozidar Bandovic, along with Andreas Niniadis, were appointed as caretaker manager(s), although a full-time replacement for the kicked-out Ketsbaia was revealed about twenty-four hours after he was canned.

During the UEFA Champions League group-stage curtain-raiser with AZ Alkmaar Zico was announced as the club’s next manager. Yes, the “White Pele”, the “God of Soccer” in Japan, and “King Arthur” in Turkey, was elected as the replacement for Ketsbaia as rumours in Greece began to swirl that Kokkalis had planned this – using Ketsbaia to cover as a band-aid on the coaching position until Zico was able to leave Russian side CSKA Moscow, but that’s nothing but speculation.

And that pretty much wraps up all the off-the-pitch material regarding Olympiacos that has transpired since my unavoidable leave of absence. Next, I’ll provide a review of the club’s Super League fixtures through the first fourteen rounds of action in the Greek top flight.