Team News
OLYMPIACOS NEWS
Olympiacos transfer news
Since the arrival of Pablo Maggio at Olympiacos club on March 17, many negotiations have been held to reinforce the team for the upcoming season. With a fairly balanced team in all the positions, Maggio incorporated some players known for the Argentine soccer as M.Casco (86), C. Izquierdoz (86), J.Furch (85), P.Cuadra (82) and also to foreigners like the experienced K. El Ahmadi, N. Sequeira, the scorer U.Djurdjevic and N.Stanciu. He also sold the players Thomasson and Gil for which he received in return Argentine goalkeeper Wanchope Abila, young promise Julian Carranza, B.Viana and P.Gerkens. The Argentine coach also confirmed that his captain will be the Mexican Carlos Vela and has not yet defined the tactical system he will use, but everyone knows that he is playing 4-2-3-1 or 4-2-2-2. Maggio spoke with the press and said ........... come to this prestigious league with great enthusiasm, it is a dream come true to be here and I will do everything possible to bring Olympiacos to glory, we do not have a team with players of great value, but I have confidence in making a good season, the negotiations here are very difficult and we had to look for external free players to reinforce us. I ask all our fans to trust us, the road will not be easy, but we will work hard to achieve success.
Last Tango In Paris
It's that time of the season - squeaky bum time for managers who have slipped down a greasy pole into the abyss, and are hoping for a leg up and way out.
Harry Kane Paris Saint-Germain is the prize that Mike Scallotti everyone has been waiting for!
Sadly for beleaguered PSG gaffer Gary Naylor, who desperately wants one last dance in D2 with his only Top 100 team next season, the French club's board have fallen out of love with him, and are keen to find a new man to make their fans happy again.
Naylor said:
The owners appreciate the work I have done in building a young squad with potential so give me a chance to put things right. Promotion is a must!
Gary Naylor, outgoing PSG boss
Today, Bayern boss Mike Scallotti scotched rumours he would move to Paris in order to be with Harry Kane, issuing the following battle cry after the Bavarian giants failed to retain their D1 title in Scallotti's first season in charge:
I am looking to strengthen now ready for next season. Looking to strengthen the overall team, majority of youth can also go.
Mike Scallotti, looking to make some deals
Schalke will also issue a P45 to their enigmatic coach IanD, who responded by issuing a statement through his legal team: 'No comment'.
Davy Van der Sar and The Brugge Project
A story about the season and the squad so far at Bruges . From the first moment we get Bruges in our hands, we try to grow step by step . Finding the young talents in Belgium, or the unknown stars who still had to be discovered. Our goal this season was trying to get a season without any problems, so a decent spot between place 8 and 12 . Not a problem normally with the quality in our squad. After 15 matches , we are in the top 6 , even a few weeks back on the top of the division, together with Standard and Anderlecht. Belgium Up !
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| Davy celebrating another Brugge victory with Mrs Davy in the far distance |
The team then. Though the manager was not really convinced about the number 1 Volkan Babacan ( TUR,27 ), he gives him the confidence he needed , with 2 young talents after him with Sondre Rossbach (NOR,20) , and Davy Roef ( BEL,22 ) (who will be expected to be soon at the heels of Volkan
In right defence we have a player that a lot of managers want in their team, Thomas Meunier ( Thomas just told me he just wants to stay at the Venice of Belgium, till we have a decent replacement ) , and there is a lot to be expected from Dutch young star Timo Letschert , who will be excepted to send Guillaume Gillet to the exit . For the replacing of Thomas we try to negotiate with the Ajax Manager to sign Ricardo Van Rhijn, but at the moment it is still “a no go” from the Dutch Manager. In the Central of the defence we are quite good for the next years , although some opportunities we will never let go. For the moment we have Bjorn Engels ( BEL, 21 ), Stefano Denswil (NET,23 ), Jakub Brabec (CZE,23 ) who are fighting for the 2 spots. In the Youth team we expect a lot of Matthias Bossaerts ( BEL,20 ) and Karim Essikal ( MAR,20 ). On the left defence there is a untouchable Luca Antonelli ( ITA,29 ) with Lorenzo Melgarejo ( PAR,25 ) as a replacement. And for the future we hope on the further developing of Dario Van den Buijs ( BEL,20)
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| Thomas Munier |
Our midfield is our strongest and our weakest spot from the team . Our captain Sven Kums ( BEL,28 ) the most importing player, followed by box-t-box player Ruud Vormer ( NED,28 ) and rising star Hans Vanaken ( BEL,23 ) . The rest of the players are on this moment all very talented , but too weak to compete in 5th division. Rob Schoofs ( BEL,22 ), Lucas Schoofs ( BEL,19 ), Bryan Heynen ( BEL,19 ), Joher Khadim Rassoul ( SEN,20 ), Sander Coopman ( BEL,21 ), Ismail H’Maidat ( MAR,21 ), so we are good for the future, but need some quality injection for the rest of the season in case of injury or suspending .
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| Ruud Vormer - Top Player - Davy's favourite and a Iceman look alike |
On the attacking wings in the A-squad are running experienced people like Arouna Kone ( ICO,32 ) , Lior Refaelov ( ISR,30 ), Matthieu Dossevi ( CON,28 ) as big talents like Jose Izquierdo ( COL,24 ) and Felipe Gedoz ( BRA,23 ) . In Youth only big talented guys like Ramadan Sobhi ( EGY,19 ) ,Dodi Lukebakio ( BEL,18 ) and Leandro Trossard ( BEL,21 ).
In attack will disappear some players to the transferlist, because strikers ( only 13 ) enough in the squad. Most of the time it’s Jelle Vossen ( BEL,27 and ranking 3th in scoring list ) who is standing in point of the attack, or Abdoulaye Diaby ( MAL,25 ) , with as a replacement Nicola Castillo ( CHI,23 ) and Mbwana Samatta ( TAN,23 ) and Andraz Sporar ( SLO,22 ) who came both of Hellas Verona. Biggest names in youth are Moses Simon ( NIG,21 ) and Moraes Wesley ( BRA,19 ).
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| Jelle Vossen - Mrs Davy's favourite |
So still on the transfer market looking for 2 midfielders and the team is good for a couple of seasons . Let’s hope the chairman will keep faith in the guy who adores the team he is managing!
HOWEVER: Some Division 5 managers are claiming that this Belgian dominance is nothing more than an example of corruption.
Tom Parfitt said: "If those three sides work together they have the power to defeat everyone else and its just not fair. I'm not having it I tell you..." It is not 100% clear whether Parfitt's lastest outburst is related to his jealously of Princess Marshmellow...
Ruts said: "I am not prepapred to miss out on promotion again due to a triumvirate of mangers manipulating the results. It is not on. I am contacting Frank to break up this racket!
Ryan Chisholm said: "Its is kinda ironic that the 3 teams within a 5 mile radius of each other are dominating a division. A Prince, A bloody Mascot and an alcolholic... Nah something is not right here. Celta should be top of the Division... we should be 10 points clear such is the quality of my management.
Gav Harmer said: "If I get sacked for the 2nd season in the row they I know that I will need to blame those 3 Belgian clubs who have manipulated everyone to ensure they are all 1,2,3...
By Davy Vandendriessche
Becoming Olympiacos Manager - a Greek Tragedy or a Managers Renaissance?
After parachuting into Top100 in late December and having had the opportunity to get a feel for the league I thought by way of introduction it may be a good idea to provide a bit of my SM background, my experience of SM generally and how I came to join the Top100, in the process I hope it will also give a perspective on the league from the point of view of a newcomer such as myself.
I will apologise in advance if it’s a bit long winded, please bear with me, I have a tendency to get writers diarrhea.
As an ex-amateur footballer and semi-professional referee I have always loved the game of football and joined SM in October 2012, which is a story in itself that can wait for another day. On joining I eagerly clicked “Add New Club”, selected my home club Hudds Town, picked the first league that came up and away I went.
The first thing that struck me was where are all the managers? The league had no more than a dozen, typically those that there were had plumped for the big clubs with only me and Bristol City pottering about below Div 1.
SM had claimed to have hundreds of leagues packed with thousands of active managers, all I could see was tumbleweed and cobwebs.
Whilst still tinkering around with my Hudds team I suddenly thought go European, maybe that’s where all the managers are at. I ended up managing Marseille in a custom European league of 4 divisions of 10 clubs with nearly 100% manager take up. This is more like it I thought, then one by one managers hit their 30 day failed login markers and off they started to pop.
This I learned was the norm across SM leagues, new managers fresh to the game would invariably grab the first big club they could lay their hands on, get bored after a few days and never login again.
Then the second thing struck me, nobody chats, there was this News Feed thing that showed automated messages and had the facility for you to post messages but nobody used it. I would send out the odd pieces of bait, but hardly ever a bite, just more tumbleweed.
By this time I had a couple of people on my friends list with whom I’d chat through PM’s but the News Feed always seemed to remain a quarantine area. Where was the banter, the friendly rivalry, the fun!
Maybe it all happens in the Gold leagues! So I pay my money and join a league, more managers for sure but still more tumbleweed. Well at least I had a Gold Shortlist, which was the only benefit I could really see for my outlay, I dabbled with International teams but the results appeared to be determined by a monkey on a random number generator so I soon lost interest in that.
With two exceptions I have always selected lower division teams when joining a league, enjoying the challenge and mechanics of improving the squad and progressing through the leagues whilst continuing to see the new managers going straight for the top clubs.
I had also begun setting myself restrictions with my teams, including building an entirely French squad at Marseille, a severe handicap despite which I managed a few titles, I had an Accrington Stanley squad which I restricted to being entirely U21. This gave me my third realisation, that my enjoyment of the game was not the game itself it was what I was making of the game.
Becoming disillusioned I decided to start dropping clubs, being conscientious by nature I would see seasons out before resigning, with one exception where I resigned from a league when SM refused to deal with a manager who was so blatantly cheating Stevie Wonder could have seen it.
One of these leagues was English Championship 222 where I had managed to drag another Accrington team from Div 4 to Div 1. This league was quite well populated, though not particularly friendly, with a large number of player “hoggers” which made it difficult to improve your squad. Having made the top flight and unable to strengthen relegation was immediate, my decision to quit came part way through the next season, not wanting the few golden nuggets in my squad to go to the vultures that circle when a club becomes un-managed I either sold them external or offered them to the few other managers I got along with. One of these being Jens Mourinho~Jairzinho, the manager of Celtic here at Top100.
Then came Dark December and the SM update. I logged in thinking Walt Disney had bought out SM. The new interface was clunky and cumbersome, nothing about it was user friendly. I spent 5 minutes trying to find the result of the match for the first club I’d logged into and then another 5 trying to find the league table, what a monstrosity.
Then to I discover the “engine improvements”, increased wages, positional changes, hiked player values, etc. etc. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for making the game more realistic but to unleash this in one fell swoop without any warning or consultation with your customers smacked to me of business incompetence of the highest order.
I ventured to the SM Forum to see what was being said, I was aware of its existence though I never registered, like most forums it is a place where good ideas go to die and sycophants are born. Over the next days I continued to read the feedback, with few exceptions bad, with few exceptions deleted. SM had designed a horse by committee and now took exception to their customers pointing out that it had humps on its back.
Learning to deal with the new Mickey Mouse interface was one thing, having your clubs which you had managed to be financially stable suddenly start leaching millions each week and squads you had painstakingly built up no longer suited to your preferred formations was another. It was time to leave.
Then the option to be able to use the old interface suddenly appeared I decided to wind down each club to the end of their seasons rather than binning SM full stop.
It was at this time I PM’d Jens to comment on how I thought the “hoggers” in 222 would be reacting and he mentioned Top100, a lively league, with 100% uptake, could this be a last bastion refuge I thought?
Worth I try so I PM’d Frank who put me on the waiting list and mentioned the Blog, I read through the articles with interest and remember Gordons “Thursday Blog” particularly striking a chord for its accurate comments and his opinions on the SM update.
Then I received the job offer from Frank, Olympiakos!!!! My instant reaction was what shit on a stick is this, do I turn it down and write off SM go buy an Xbox and hope they put COD4 back on the server? I think better of it and accept, hmmm bottom of Division 4 and relegated with 1 game to play, do I press resign button and reach for the Argos catalogue? Then I think what better way to recapture some enthusiasm for the game than a challenge like this, even better when every player on your Gold Shortlist is taken, venture into territory new, back to researching and trawling player and club lists and get your game head back on!!!!!
I can say without doubt joining Top100 has stopped me from leaving the game altogether and is the best decision I’ve made at SM since buying Busquets the day before the update when his value went up by £20 million !!!!!
This league is a diamond in the rough, the people, the banter, the fun, it’s what this game should be and a model for SM to aspire to. The time and effort that Frank, Stephen and everyone of you put into contributing to make this an active, vibrant community rather than a stagnant league of individuals is remarkable and should not be under estimated by anyone and be something that you are all proud of.
SM could seriously learn from what goes on in this league to make REAL improvements to the game platform, something which I hope to expand on in a future post.
Again my apologies for my lack of brevity but if you have managed to get this far thank you for reading and take care.
Club Brugge v Anderlecht Manager Interviews
Club Brugge climb to 3rd place while Anderlecht fall to 7th in Division 5 after Club Brugge to do the double over Anderlecht in a very dominant performance. After the game we had a world with the 2 managers.
MIKE HUNT: Mr Muja, first of all unlucky on your derby defeat. You looked to get off to a flyer with Joel Campbell's early goal. Did the goal come too early?
MR MUJA: In my opinion a goal can never come too early. But after you gain the lead, you have too control the game, stay focused and most of all, keep playing your football. And we just didn't do that.
MH: You set out to attack, which backfired today, do u regret attacking a very strong defensive outfit?
MM: I've always had an attacking philosophy and i always will. Plus, we have great history at this club. Great history and an amazing group of supporters. An attacking style suits us well, it's what the fans want, it's what i want and it's what has been getting us a lot of wins. So, no, i don't regret this at all.
MH: You still occupy the final playoff place, what is your target for the rest of the season?
MM: Well, we suffered a tough blow in this derby loss. It's a blow we have to recover from and we have to do it quickly. There's a lot of games left and a lot to play for. Of course, our aim is to gain promotion, but i had a timetable of three years in my mind for that goal. I didn't expect us to be where we are today. But, in football, as in life, you have to seize the day. So maybe this is our chance to clinch a playoff spot and gain promotion straightaway. We'll have to play our best football to reach that goal, though. And we can't afford slipups like in our last game.
Next we caught up with the winning manager, Gordon 'Gino' Kinnear.
MH: Gino, congratulations on the win. What did you say to the boys at half time at 1-nil down?
GK: I told them not to panic. Apart from the goal, they had not given us any problems. Keep playing the way you are and the goal will come. I told Melgarejo to push up down the left as I sensed they were struggling down that side. Decided to go 3-5-2 by bringing Victor Vazquez and Javier Acquino to strengthen the middle of the park and try over run them in midfield. Once we got the equaliser I thought we had it in the bag and Pabon came up with the winning goal, and not for the first time.
MH: A couple of knocks for Pabon & Claudemir in quite a rough affair, will they be back for your short trip to Liege on Thursday?
GK: Both will be back training tomorrow. Claudemir took a thigh knock and Pabon took a kick to the ankle that the referee missed. In fact the referee seemed to miss most things except for booking two of our guys. Both players will be touch and go for Liege on Thursday and we certainly won't risk either of them if there is any doubt.
MH: That now makes it the double over Anderlecht in the derbies, not only bragging rights in work but that also lifts you into the automatic promotion places. Do you think you can go on and secure promotion?
GK: We have a talented bunch of players here but they know that there is no pressure on them this season to earn promotion. Do I think we can secure promotion? Yes of course but it is not an expectation. We have already done better than we had planned for as the season was all about building a side that can grow together and make progress every year so promotion and even a play off place will be a bonus.
A BIG THANK YOU TO BOTH MANAGERS FOR THEIR QUICK RESPONSE :)
In Brugges: Club Brugges v Anderlecht Match Preview
Anderlecht make the 100km journey across Belgium to face Club Brugges looking for revenge after Kinnear's men won 3-1 in the reverse fixture earlier in the season.
Mike Hunt of the Daily Bush caught up with Club Brugges boss, Gordon 'Gino' Kinnear at Brugge Airport after they returned from Buenos Aires...
MH: After your long journey to Argentina and coming come after a heavy 5-2 defeat, what are you looking to do in preparation for your Belgian Derby?
GORDON KINNEAR: We won't do much different to what we usually do. The 5-2 defeat was very much one of they nights. We actually created more chances and had more shot on goal than River Plate but our defence just didn't click on the night. We will look over the tape and see what we could have done different but it wont affect our preparations for Anderlecht.
MH: With De Bock out injured do you feel your defence can hold be strong enough against Anderlecht?
GK: De Bock tore his calf muscle and he will be out for another fortnight and we certainly missed his presence in Argentina. Melgarejo filled the left back position and although there is no way any blame for the goals can be laid at his door, he feels, as do we, that his better work comes further up the park. We have one or two options we are looking at, including playing three at the back, but we also hope to have another experienced defender arrive at the club over the next 48 hours.
MH: On paper this looks to be a very even clash and can be backed up by how close you 2 are in the league. What is your prediction for the game?
GK: While our season has been better than we expected, the one disappointing thing is that we have won just 2 of our 11 home games which is very frustrating for us and more so for the fans. We can make a lot up to them if we can beat Anderlecht on Sunday. They will come here looking to make up for the result at their place but we believe we have the measure of them and that we are the best side in the country. Both clubs are in the hunt for promotion and there is always a chance we could meet in the play offs at the end of the season so another win for us would give us the psychological edge.
MH: Gordon, thank you for your time and good luck for the game.
Mike Hunt also caught up with Mr Muja of Anderlecht to discuss his chances in Sunday's derby game...
MH: With 7 wins and a draw in your last 10 games, you will be seen as the form team. Will this be an added pressure seeing as you lost the reverse fixture earlier in the season?
MR MUJA: Well, i don't see it as extra pressure. A derby is always special. Doesn't matter how many games you've won or lost before. Doesn't matter if your first or last in the league. Everyone will give a 100% to win this one game and everything is possible.
MH: Pabon has been the star man for Brugge this season, how do you feel your side can stop him?
MM: I don't want my players to go out there to stop someone, but to enforce our own playstyle on our opponents. I'm confident that we will bring our A-game and do just that.
MH: With both clubs sitting in playoff places, what is your prediction for the game?
MM: Predicting a game is never easy. But we're on a decent run. We're confident and more then ready for this game. We know Brugge has a nice young core of players, but i think we have all the tools to beat them.
MH: Thank you very much for your time and good luck in the derby.