Greek League
2009-03-01 - Olympiakos vs Panathinaikos
A Sports Betting Pick by RedLine
Football: Greece, Greek Super League
Sundat 1st March 2009 - Kickoff 18:30
The Greek "el clasico" will take place at Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium, in Piraeus.
Both teams played mid week Euro games and from the results it looks like Pana will be more affected in a good way since he managed to pull a good result with Villarreal away (1-1), while at the same time Olympiakos sufferd another defeat from French side Saint Etienne 2-1.
OLYMPIAKOS - 1st 57 points
The midweek defeat by Saint Etienne with 2-1 had the reds kicked out of next stage round for the UEFA cup.
Three defeats in a row is something Olympiakos and his fans are not used to. Club manager Ernesto Valverde will have to deal with a few injuries and bad moral of players.
Even with the +11 point lead at the top of the Greek standings Valverde knows he can not under estimate Panathinaikos. He needs to pull his squad together and get focused real hard for this match.
Most of the teams injury issues are solved, but the problem of no deep bench quality is still there.
Galleti is back, Dudu and Belluschi will have a late fit test but I dont think they will make it, at least not in first line up.
Possible Olympiakos line up :
Nikopolidis, Torosidis, Papadopoulos, Antzas, Pantos, Patsatzoglou, Mendrinos, Leto, Galleti, Oscar, Diogo.
PANATHINAIKOS - 2nd 46 points
Pana had one more great away performance on his Champion League journey this year, playing very well away against Spanish side Villarreal at the Madrigal and Pana managed to take a 1-1 draw result back to Athens for the rematch in two weeks.
Hank Ten Cate will count a lot on his players confidence for the derby on Sunday.
Karagounis will play, his injury was not serious, but Mantzios is out. Beside Mantzios, no other injury problems for Ten Cate, who asked from his players to go only for the win in this match and prove Panathinaikos is the better team beside the 11 point diff.
Possible Panathinakos line up :
Galinovic, Nilson, Vintra, Sariegi, Spyropoulos, Gabriel, Karagounis, Zilberto Silva, Simao, Salpigidis, Cleyton.
HEAD TO HEAD
99-00 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 2-2
00-01 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 1-0
01-02 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 2-2
02-03 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 3-0
03-04 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 1-1
04-05 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 1-0
05-06 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 3-2
06-07 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 0-1
07-08 OLYMPIAKOS vs PANATHINAIKOS 1-1
Olympiakos 4 wins - Panathinaikos 1 win - and 4 draws
MATCH ANALYSIS
Panathinaikos may not have the speed of St. Etienne, but they do however have superior passing overall technical skill and off ball movement.
Pana's bench is much stronger and I can see Henk Ten Cate going out on the field with a little more attacking nous as I truly believe that a win at this time can easily be done but I expect more of the usual defensive tactics of his, but with two players up front.
I estimate Pana will go 5-3-2 on the field, after the 3 in a row defeats Olympiakos has, Pana players will have the pace, flair and creativity that can give the slow, tired red defense a really hard time.
Olympiakos may have an impressive home record of 12 wins in a row, but the last 6 home games were hard victories with one goal difference against teams that were from middle to bottom of the table.
The biggest problem for the reds is that they dont have first class players coming from the bench. Without Dudu and Belluschi they will be forced to play more of their secondary less skillful mids, and this gives Pana a huge advantage.
THE BETTING VERDICT
This game won't settle the Greek Super League as the Reds have probably already won it - but it has have "bragging rights" for the fans.
Its the biggest Greek derby, and the advantage for the time being goes to Panathinaikos for sure, Pana has more confidence, is in better shape, has good players comming from the bench, and most important no pressure from his fans.
Just hope the refs dont kill this game early on with their oversensitivity in blowing for fouls every time a player touches someone as that kills the game.
Pana has confidence now after the good and positive results the past few games, while OLY is slumping a bit (3 defeats in a row) so I can't see Pana losing this match, the worst senario would be the draw.
Possible scores 0-1 (1-1)
