THE LAST GREEK HERO

Dimitris Kalinakis 

Dimitris is just a random guy from Ilioupoli, in the suburbs of Athens. He just became manager of the local team, Ilioupoli FC which competes in the second division of the Greek football pyramid. 

He will be the protagonist of this carreer, which wants to be a journeyman around a couple of European Leagues. It's going to be chill, we are just going around the continent to play in some leagues I would like to play before the new chapter comes out. We may win and we may lose, but none of it matters.

In the next update we will meet the team and talk about tactics. For now that's all. See you soon!

MEET THE TEAM

Ilioupoli has a team that is predicted to finish in the middle of the league, and with only one spot available for promotion we can safely expect not to be involved in the promotion battle. The board is much more pessimistic than me, and will be pleased if we don't finish dead last! 

In my opinion the team is capable of avoiding the relegation tussle, but I can live with a low pressure/low ambition management. Let's take a paragraph to show you the noteworthy memebers of the squad, so that you can make an opinion for yourself. 

The team captain is Giannis Gotsoulias, nothing special technically speaking but a lot of experience in the helleinc lower leagues. He was the captain when Dimitris got here, he will remain captain. We don't want to mess up the dynamics straight away! 

The best player is the argentinan winger Franco Costa, who just landed in Europe after spending his whole carreer in South America. His pay is more than double the second highest salary, and rightfully so. Our striker Apostolos Giannou is a good experienced forward, who might still have some more junk in his trunk. Finally our midfilder Carlos Ramos, who decided to take a big step and come to the old continent after spending his early years in his homecountry of Venezuela. 

The only signing Dimitris did was Spyros Fourlanos, free agent, to give some more options in the defensive side of the pitch. 

The first game in Dimitris professional carreer will be against Apollon Paralimnium, a team competing in the third level of the greek pyramid. The game will be the third round of the greek cup. In theory we will be favourites, so hopefully we can make a good impression straight away.

The game revealed more complex than expected. We conceded an early goal and had an hard time coming back in the game. The equalizing goal was signed by our ghanian whinger Roe Addo. We had to go to extra-time to break the equilibrium, but ultimetly we managed to win it with a gol from the other ghanian winger Frimpong. 

The next game will be for the 4th round against Olimpiakos Volou, a team of the 4th tier. On paper it should be easier, in reality we will live to see. 

Next update will be with a bit more games, seen a little bit less in detail! See you soon! 

Good luck with this 

Thank you Bigmatt!

THE FIRST MONTHS

I know that the greek second division is one of the biggest leagues in the world, but let me take a couple of minutes to explain the structure and the functioning to the few that are not familiar with it. First of all is divided in two groups, one composed by team in the north, one with the teams in the south. Each group has 12 teams, in which they play each other twice for a total of 22 games. At the end the last team is relegated, the first 5 play in a promotion pool where the winner is promoted to SuperLeague, while the team from 6 to 11 play in the relegation pool, where the last 3 are relegated!

From next season the structure will change again, but to be honest is not clear yet how. I guess will be easier once we will see it first hand. 

We are now in mid december, and after an incredible start of the campaing with a resounding 7-0 win, we kind of entered a mediocre period of results. Some good wins in November were cut short from a heavy deafeat by the hand of the reserve team of Olympiacos. Nonetheless we can be happy from what we have seen from the team so far. 

The table sees us in second place at the turn of the corner. Kallithea is basically doing a competition by themselves, but we are still exceeding expectetions! 

Despite doing very well in the league, the true masterpiece was done in the greek cup, where we just eliminated Panetolikos, a team from the Superleague! Yes, they are one of the worst team in the Superleague, but still! We came back in the return leg of the sixth turn, and won on penalties! We will now take part in the quarter finals of the cup! 

To finish up the recap, here are the top performers of the team so far. Apostolos Giannou has totaled an incredible 15 goals in 16 games, while Gertjan Bushaj has been splendid as a left back! 7 assists and the highest average rating are the highlights of his form till this point, hopefully he can keep it going for the rest of the season!

EARLY MASTERPIECE

With January comes the market, and we received a very good bid for Franco Costa. The financial situation is not alarming, but is not very good either, and around 50k come in handy. Efcharistó dear Franco, hope you enjoyed your 6month stint in Europe, now go back to Argentina

We fill the void left by him with a loan of the young wing from Costarica Alvaro Zamora. He plays for Aris a team in the Superleague, and while he is not as good as Costa, I think he will substitute him well.

But now let's get back to the title of the post. The more attentive of you will remember that we had to face the quarter final of the Greek Cup. The team in front of us is Volos, currently sitting in eleventh place in Superleague. We won the first leg, played in Ilioupoli, with a very convincing 2-1. In the return leg we went down 2-0 but the always scoring Apostolus Giannou scored the 2-1 that sent the quarter final to extra time. Around half an hour later, we are facing penalties. But just as we did in the previous round, we end up winning! 

We are one of the four best team in the greek peninsula. Let that sink in! We will face off against Panathinaikos, so we can wave goodbye to the competition. Although saying that we exceeded expectations is almost an understatement!

FINISHING UP THE FIRST PHASE

Let's just pull the sick tooth out. The story of the season, our deep run in the cup, was brutally interrupted by Panathinaikos. We stood no chance, and we ended up losing 10-3 on aggregate. Despite the huge loss, we can look back and be incredibly proud of our path, we came much further than anyone would have expected, myself included. 

In parallel we kept a good form in the league, a couple of losses here and there, a couple of wins that heated the fans and neutral alike, and a couple of draws. I'm very happy that we manage to score at least once in any game we played this year, if you consider that we only had 3 clean sheets you can see that we have been sparking the enthusiasm of the fans across the whole campaing. 

The first phase is now concluded, and we finished 2nd, qualifying for the promotion pool. In the north AEK B won the league, and will take part in the promotion phase but won't be able to go to the Superleague, being a reserve team.

The draw will see us face off against Kallithea, which is the favourite to go up, AEK B and Panachiki and Diagoras, who should not be better than us. I highly doubt that we will get promoted, but again, we had not to finish last and finished second instead, so we can be very happy as things stand!