PAOK – Olympiacos: Sworn enemies, temporary allies – Battle in Toumba in an atmosphere of tension but also administrative flirtation –

The derbies of hatred in the Greek league are undoubtedly those between PAOK and Olympiakos. This… cologne has been going on for years and specifically started in the 60s, when Olympiacos tried to acquire Giorgos Koudas. Since then, dozens of games have been played between the two teams with great tension, protests, incidents, while there have also been outright suspensions.

In recent years the scene has changed and for example last year the current gladiators of Toumba prevailed with four goals at the opponent’s home without any dramas happening. For six months now, the administrations of the two PAEs have come closer and from their contacts the new administration of EPO emerged. In other times it would have been unthinkable for PAOK to ally with Olympiacos and Olympiacos with PAOK. Especially the fans of the “double-head of the north” do not accept it, it is a red line.

However, Greek football must make progress and Ivan Savvidis has an open channel of communication with Vangelis Marinakis and vice versa. They do not have an alliance in the narrow sense of the term. They talked and agreed to change the page of the EPO administration and from then on each group defends its interests. However, there is and will be agreement on basic non-competitive issues that concern Greek football as a whole.

Savvidis and Marinakis have spoken about the improvement of Greek refereeing, which has plagued the league for years and is a source of great tensions. Referees who were negative protagonists in previous years were cut from the board, while the keys to the Central Refereeing Committee were given to a Frenchman, Stéphane Lanois, who has… closed his ears and goes with what he considers to be right.

From 2016, PAOK teamed up with AEK and progress was made in Greek football. If they are made from the collaboration of Savvidis and Marinakis, then the Super League will go to another level.

Losses in the “Castle”

The champion and host of the derby, PAOK, is counting serious losses in Toumba this year, and that is why he follows Aris in the standings. He was defeated by his “compatriot” in the derby of Thessaloniki 1-0 and by OFI 2-1 and even with an upset.

In today’s game, Razvan Lucescu will not sit on the bench. He will be in a stadium suite due to a suspension and this could develop into a problem for the team. The Romanian coach has transformed her and led her to win championships and cups. What characterizes Loucheskou’s PAOK is that they consistently play with the same system, 4-2-3-1, and when they have consecutive games, they proceed to extensive rotation. That way, he can and has all the players active without there being murmurs in the locker room from the sidelined.

PAOK’s big problem in the current season is that they have four centre-forwards who do not score. It’s… no smoke. Chalov, Thomas, Brandon, Tisundali, Samata do not have good contact with the nets and this has cost their team in Greece and in Europe. Despite all that, in SL1, the “double-headed of the north” has the most productive attack, having scored 17 goals in the first ten matches of the league. And this is because his central attacking players have the ability to score. Even the defensive midfielder Mandi Kamara, who changed camps and from Olympiakos found himself in Toumba, has… signed two “golden” three-pointers, scoring in the away games against Atromitos and Levadeiakos. In both cases, the 27-year-old midfielder proved to be Lucescu’s move-mate from the bench in order to break the opposing defenses from the air and give PAOK six valuable points.

PAOK have depth on their bench and it is indicative of the fact that of the 37 goals they have scored to date, eight have come from players who were used as substitutes. Also, the “black and white” do not give up and have scored eleven goals in the last 15 minutes of the games.

Last Thursday, the “two-headed” had a difficult task against Manchester United who are faltering in the Premier League and lost 2-0 although he put in a good performance, while Tisundali missed a unique chance at 1-0 to equalize. In addition to any disappointment as the “double-header” in four matches in the Europa League has no victory (one draw and three defeats counts), there is also the “fatigue” factor from the effort at Old Trafford. But another Europe and another Greek derby. And in all that has to do with PAOK… internal, the “two-headed” is not looking good lately as it counts two home defeats against Ari and OFI, while it won with great force and an upset in Lamia. Now having Olympiakos in front of him, he has no room for any more losses at home, which could cost him dearly in the title battle.

It’s troubling

Olympiacos, for its part, in this year’s championship, is causing problems with its performances and after playing 1/3 of the games, it shares 3rd place with AEK. “I didn’t like the game, we gave the opponent the right to equalize. We didn’t do anything right, even before we did something stupid. It’s everyone’s fault, starting with me. As the boss it’s my fault

me” said Jose Luis Mendiliber after the “red and white” victory over Panseraikos (2-1), expressing his displeasure with the way his players handled the match.

Today, of course, Olympiacos is expected to show a different face. Piraeus are looking for a big win that will lift them to SL1, although they have been particularly sluggish at home so far.

The big problem for Piraeus is that they have received little help from the transfers of the summer and in fact the gap left by Pontense, Fortounis and Horta has not been filled. El Kaabi remains a stable value, but a cuckoo cannot bring spring every matchday for Olympiakos.

The “red and whites” have received significant help from their “new blood” and especially from Mouzakitis and Kostoulas, whose presence in the eleven has limited the grumbling of the platform.

In Europe, Olympiacos continues to progress quite well after winning the Conference League last year, however there are not a few people inside and outside the team who argue that the players pick games. Last Thursday the “red and whites” drew 1-1 with Rangers but reached seven points in the standings, which gives them hopes of being in the top 24 of the competition and qualifying for the playoffs, while the big goal is not far away entry into the top eight for direct qualification to the round of 16. And if things are going well in Europe, the same is not the case with Olympiakos… domestic, where the geles with Levadean and Panaitoliko have brought him three points behind the leader Aris. The main characteristic of the club is that it suffers in creating phases against closed defenses. And if you don’t create chances, you don’t score goals. In fact, if tonight the “red and white” lose points in Toumba, they risk being far behind the top. Therefore, for them, as well as for PAOK, victory is the only way.

Those who leafed through the autobiography of the late Yiannis Ioannidis with an eye on the “clicks” hurried to delete the “Big No’s” chapter, where they read (and republished) what the market has known for years. Although the one-sided flirtation has been perennial and often pressing, the response has been unreservedly negative. There was no possibility that the believer in the principles of Ioannidis would sign for Panathinaikos or PAOK. “It would be a betrayal against my beliefs, but also against the people who loved and supported me,” he explains to those who were not lucky enough to know him. The juice of the book (“Born Winner”, ed. Psychogios, written modestly and humbly by Dimitris Karydas, Vassilis Skoundis) is hidden in other chapters and requires deciphering what is skillfully or clumsily hidden between the lines. Ioannidis unleashes medicinal insinuations against the later “green” Zarko Paspali for the defeat by Obradovic’s Badalona in 1994 in Tel Aviv: “Why didn’t he stay at Olympiakos, where we had him as a god? And why did he tell us he had sprained his fingers in the final? Simply because Olympiacos had to lose to Badalona, ​​which had a Serbian coach!”. At another point, Ioannidis hints that the then management of Ari (under Christos Michaelidis) gave Tracer that much-discussed replay, where a difference of 31 points was overturned: “I was asked why the members of the management came to Milan via Switzerland and did not did they travel with the mission? Let them ask themselves, I am not a travel agent to know. And in the final analysis, that’s not how big teams are made.” Ioannidis believed that someone put a hypnotic in the coffee of the Aris players before the match, while about the infamous waters of CSKA he writes that the Russians were poisoned in a beach club without the involvement of Olympiakos. “Envy is internal and not external” he adds sibylically. He took all the rest with him.

German whistle

At the moment there is no confidence in the Greek referees to whistle a SL1 derby, especially after the serious error of Tasos Sidiropoulos in the AEK Cup match with Ari, where he did not send off Brignoli for kicking Suleimanov. The big game of the 11th matchday will be managed by the German Sven Jablonski, from the first division of UEFA. The 34-year-old referee has been international since 2022 and last February he came back to Greece to whistle for Panathinaikos – Olympiacos 2-0.

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