A little higher, a little higher, a little higher!

Andreas Dimatos analyzes facts about Greek football after the success of Olympiacos, the fierce competition between our teams at the top, the secret of the top ten places in the UEFA rankings, the battle with the Czech Republic, the fan movement and ideas for further advancement of the tournament.

Leave aside the confrontation of the fans…

Leave aside what his average fans feel today Olympiaco For his followers PAOKl PanathenaikoBut she is too Eek Who lived in his stadium the greatest moment in his team’s history.

We don’t need to be hypocrites and…politically correct in football, which has its uncompromising honesty! In no country on this planet does a fan celebrate the success of his hated opponent! They will not go out into its streets Barcelona Her followers Barcelonaif it was real madrid Tomorrow evening, the European champion will be crowned for the 15th time, and her fans will not be happy Bayern Or a lot of them Schalke They will be happy if you succeed Dortmund For there to be a requirement that all Greek sports fans celebrate his success by embracing him Olympiaco!

That’s not the idea. The important point is that competition at fan level or competition at club level starts moving up, not down. His success Olympiaco To be a milestone in tapping into the potential of Greek football, as everyone now realizes that it is 20th in the league European Football Association From there we began our European journey this year, where we saw four of our teams in the group stage, two in the quarter-finals and one win the European Cup for the first time.

Rivalry between fans will always be there. And everywhere! The peculiarity of our country is that very often this confrontation lies in how we discredit the opponent and not in how we see our team fighting to overcome it…

Being an optimist by nature, I may not know when… “we will see the almond trees blooming” or “the marble sparkles in the sun”, but I am absolutely certain that the time has come for Greek football. … “Just a little, let’s go a little higher, a little higher” …
Let’s look at the data at three different levels

General surprises

There are three elements that emerged during this year’s European season, even before it ended with tomorrow’s final Champions League.

The first is the fact that Italy finished first this year in terms of its team results, something that has happened since the 2002-23 season!

The second is that Czech Republic He finished this year in seventh place UEFA classification With its teams superior in results to the Portuguese national team Holland Which turkey!

The third is that a Greek team won a European title for the first time!

Keep the last two because they are related. Does anyone today remember some of the team’s excellence this year from seventh place Czech Republic As for his victory Olympiaco From Greece Ninth? The question is rhetorical, because the Czech Republic will be our country’s biggest rival, if it eventually rises to a slightly higher level in European football, the biggest rival for our country’s return to the top 10 in Europe. Which…the Czech Republic has gone up this year. Because that should be the goal now.

What is the difference Czech Republic related Hellas; In recent years, its crop has been divided into three groups (Slavia Prague, Sparta Prague And Victoria PlzenUnlike our country, whose crop this year as well as in the current five years comes from 75-80% of two groups, Olympic And the PAOK.

And if there is chaos after these three Czech teams (h Bohemians from Prague It was her fourth actress Czech Republic this year, Banik Ostrava Next year will be along with one of Bolesław the Hradec Kralov…), l Hellas There is the Eek And Panathinaikoswho “heated” this year in Europe and has always been a very important figure in European football.

When the Greek harvest is based on four teams together, as was the case at the beginning of the century and not two, as in recent years, the top ten in Europe will not be a distant dream for Greek football, without of course having to achieve it. Every Greek team will be participating in the final of a European competition in May, something we know won’t happen that easily!

His success this year Olympic, The effort to find imitators for the top, but also the domestic competition in the last two leagues can safely lead in this direction. Our country started this year from twentieth place in its ranking European Football Association With significant differences from…the countries above it and ended up Fifteenth place. We start this summer from Fourteenth place With acceptable variations of Austria, Norway And Israel And a long distance from Czech Republic 10thWhich is difficult to cover in one season.

But we can rise a little (or a lot) higher! Our competition is not with the five major powers in Europe, but with the teams of these countries, which is completely within the capabilities of our teams!

next step

In our country we organized with absolute safety a European final, which, due to its specificity, most people considered it impossible to survive. New Philadelphia. Shouldn’t we start looking at banning fans from traveling to local events?

Let us abandon hypocrisy. Such a discussion cannot take place neither in a ministerial office nor in the union nor anywhere! It has to start among the teams, even at the level of organized fans, as most of them want us to experience football in Greece again, as we adults learned.

If the rational majority prevails, and if he is arrested, we consider his followers to be a small minority Olympiaco They did not respect her hospitality Oubab Square Which caused sabotage at the kindergarten level, and the stupidity of the fan who was photographed with his child carrying two chairs from the stadium cannot be expressed by anyone. EekEverything can change.

Let’s put aside political hypocrisy at last cup With fans. As his final cup It remains the only game in an entire season where opposing fans can coexist, so it will feel like an episode date. We must first learn to coexist Cretein Tripoli And in YaninaThen in the big derby and after that it will be a normal final again cup.

How do we have the demand that its followers consider? Eek Is it normal for Olympiacos fans to be in their team’s stadium, while an entire generation of fans considers such a thing forbidden? When today a fan between the ages of 15 and 35 has never seen an opposing fan at their team’s home game and thinks their stadium is off-limits to any non-religious fan? When, like my generation, he didn’t see a whole petal of red and white New Philadelphia Or straight yellow-black Gate 13 From ancient Karaiskakis?

Obviously this cannot be done in the morning, it is clear that every Greek League derby cannot be held with unprecedented police measures in its finals. conferenceBut do we now have…a push to start the conversation?

This is the only way we will be able to go a little (or a lot) higher!

One match a year is not worth the effort.

This will not change the evil and toxic mentality we have created among ordinary sports fans!

But honesty is required at the level of the country’s leading clubs. no prime ministerNeither the state, nor…social bodies, nor…firefighting, nor drones will provide the solution!

Playoff promotion

Because I know him well Mina Lisandro I’m sure in his mind he will have started thinking about improving the way we make the playoffs and moving up the league Premier Leaguewhose competitiveness has greatly improved in recent years!

It is correct to think about the group of teams that win the tournament and the number of participants, so that there are not theoretically indifferent teams like this year. Mars And the beast Who were spectators in the great battle of the four until the final match for the emergence of the champion. I don’t know how Greece’s fifth ticket to European competitions can help in this direction.

Even the calendar should be revised with more timing flexibility for qualifying derbies than for regular season matches. Participation in the quarter-finals of European competitions must be the goal of our teams with a parallel expectation not to pressure matches with constant fatigue but also with qualifying derbies of great interest, which is what necessarily happened this year.

There are much better conditions for Greek football and local competition should not become an obstacle but rather a source of development and progress.