Greek Super League 2010/2011 Preview – Panathinaikos will take some stopping

The Greek Super League 2010/2011 season got off to a start this past weekend. With the new campaign underway, Just Football’s Greek football correspondent Filippos tells us what to expect. Will the title be staying with Panathinaikos at the above Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium?

The Greek Super League commences without much fanfare, but many expectations for a better level of football and excitement at the top.

Last season, Panathinaikos were without question the better team versus an Olympiacos squad that changed five head coaches in a season and a PAOK team that were too defensive to challenge for the title. This season, apart from Panathinaikos, there will be three other contenders, Olympiacos, PAOK and AEK Athens and things are looking brighter for a league that struggles to be included in the top European leagues.

We shall start from the winners of the double, Panathinaikos. This is going to be a crucial season, as the chairman of the last two seasons, Nikos Pateras has resigned and Nikos Konstantopoulos, a politician with little experience in football has taken his place.

The ultras are not happy with the change, as two years ago they demonstrated against the then-owners, the family of Vardinogiannis. After a long barren spell under his guidance, they managed to bring about changes that ultimately resulted in winning the double.

Now, once again, Giannis Vardinogiannis is pulling all the ropes and making decisions. In the final pre-season game against Genoa, Panathinaikos ultras once again demonstrated against him.

The situation could prove explosive for the “Greens”, especially if things on the pitch don’t work out.

On the pitch, however, Panathinaikos roster is the strongest it has ever been in the last decade. Having lost Dimitris Salpingidis on a free transfer to PAOK, the Greens managed to sign Sidney Govou, the French international and improved their backline by acquiring Jean-Alain Boumsong, who will be starting next to Cedric Kante at centre half.

The coach, Nikos Nioblias, after winning the double in his first season as head coach at a football club, won’t change the recipe much, but he is ready to leave Giorgios Karagounis on the bench in favor of the wonderkid Sotiris Ninis, who will start as the playmaker of the team.

For the rest of the contenders, things are not so clear. PAOK suffered elimination by Ajax in the Champions League qualifying round but made it into the Europa League Group Stage at the expense of Fenerbahce. They changed their head coach Fernando Santos, trying to bring a new, more attacking era, but then sacked Mario Beretta before the first game of the season, resorting to the inexperienced Pavlos Dermitzakis, who has not fared that bad.

Olympiacos is the favorite to challenge for the title, as the new owner and chairman, ship tycoon, Evangelos Marinakis has splashed the cash in 13 new signings. The most important change, however, was on the bench. Ewald Liened was sacked after a defeat by Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League and Mr. Marinakis convinced the fan’s favourite Ernesto Valverde to return to Greece, after a year in Spain.

Valverde brought in Moises Hurtado from Espanyol, Dennis Rommedahl and Ariel Ibagaza followed and the latest signing was Marko Pantelic from Ajax. Olympiacos have made drastic changes to their roster and the bench and it could certainly cost them a lot in terms of teamwork and coherence.

Finally, AEK Athens have been the big question of the Greek Super League for a couple of years. They have the most successful coach in the history of Greek football, but Dusan Bajevic couldn’t make his team challenge for the title last season.

In the summer, Bajevic, who is still hated by the AEK’s ultras for abandoning the team in 1996 to move to Olympiacos, was attacked on the pitch by fans of his own team and most predicted that AEK would implode afterwards.

However, Enosis managed to secure an away win against Dundee Utd and appear to play much better than last year, as the returns of Traianos Dellas and Nikos Liberopoulos, both well in their thirties, have strengthened team spirit.

The new season of the Super League will bring about a new football ground for Larissa, Hector Raul Cuper in his second season at Aris and more teams outside of Athens to make things difficult for the teams from the capital and Thessaloniki.

But most of all, it will bring the unique combination of eastern European-style corrupted officials, Mediterranean passion of the fans and big names playing in grounds not fit for third division football.

(photo credit: diebmx on Flickr)

AEK Athens, Aris Thessaloniki, Ernesto Valverde, Greece, Greek Super League, Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, PAOK FC