“I don’t understand the decision to fire me at all. We had good results, so I never saw this coming. The worst thing was that I found out about the club’s decision to sack me on the club’s official internet site. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. Some legal representative came to my house to tell me that I was fired. They have treated me as if I had done something wrong.”

To top it all, fans of the former Greek champions were so furious with their recent performances, that they invaded the pitch during Zico’s last game, a disappointing 0-0 draw at home to Kavala. Zico again described the trouble he witnessed:

“Before the match, vandals invaded the field, fought with the police and other people,” added Zico. We heard bombs exploding and our team was stuck in the locker room one hour before the game´s start, afraid about what could happen if we got out.
At corner kicks, plastic bottles and objects were thrown into the field and everybody was a potential target. During halftime, the vandals that invaded the field again showed destroyed chairs.

“I didn’t imagine to live a situation like that. I had to go to the press conference with ten security guards protecting me. Our bus was escorted by a dozen police cars. I had the feeling that we were fugitives.”

“A friend told me that I should take a year’s rest with my family. That´s exactly what I´m going to do.”

Reports like this don’t do Greek football any favors, and suggest that there is perhaps some way to go before the country is ready to host a major international tournament, as it wants to.

Everyone at Larissa FC, Greece, and Mexico are devastated by the sudden loss of such a young and capable player. This is the second tragic death of a European professional soccer player. Antonio de Nigris’ death follows that of German goalkeeper Robert Enke who was buried just a day ago; the funeral service was attended by over 45000 soccer fans proving the popularity of the player.

While Enke’s death is known to be a suicide, Antonio’s death is still a mystery. The coroner will perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

In the meantime, us at Soccer Delirium would like to express our most sincere condolences to the de Nigris family. Antonio was happily married and had a 5-year old daughter.

With this move, Olympiacos bolster their midfield with an experienced player who has lifted the UEFA Cup twice playing for Sevilla. Maresca started his playing career with AC Milan and made his first professional appearances with English club West Bromwich Albion 11 years ago. Even though he moved back to Italy for Juventus a couple of years later, he never managed to earn himself a spot in the playing eleven. The transfer to Sevilla FC was an opportunity the young player did not let pass becoming the team’s leader during his 4 years with the club. Now, he has a chance to do the same with Olympiacos who not only are a dominating team in the Greek Super League but will also give “capo” the chance to play in the Champions League this coming year.

If Olympiacos closes the deal with the young American striker Jozy Altidore, the new team will be ready to take on any domestic and European challenges. With rival Panathinaikos having bolstered their lineup with some good signings, the Greek Super League may be exciting to watch this coming season. The two Greek clubs are also very likely to be competitive in the European leagues which can only be a good thing for them financially.

Enjoy highlights from Enzo’s soccer career thus far in the video below.

Jozy was thrust into soccer stardom last month when he scored USA’s first goal against undefeated European Champions Spain during South Africa’s Confederations Cup. The 19-year old has been playing in Europe since last summer after debuting in MLS at the age of 16 for New York’s Red Bulls team. After playing 6 games for Villarreal and scoring 1 goal, he was loaned to second division Xerez where he played little soccer sidelined due to injury. Now, the young striker has a chance to showcase his skill not only in Greece but also all of Europe since the Super League champions have a good chance of playing in the Champions League group stage.

Olympiacos are fortunate to sign such a young an promising player. He will be a great addition to a very young forward line currently consisting of Diogo and Matt Derbyshire (another recent signing for the Piraeus club.) As it stands, Olympiacos now needs only a creative midfield player and they will easily dominate the Greek Super League for another season.

Watch Altidore score at the Confederation Cup against Spain in the video below.

Now, Cisse’s talent, speed, and scoring abilities cannot be dismissed but I wonder if Panathinaikos just purchased a player who probably wasn’t worth that much money. Cisse’s performance has suffered greatly in the last few years and especially after breaking his leg in 2006. He has even lost his place on the French national team. Liverpool had no room for him and even though eventually Marseille bought the player he only joined the team for half a year and then he played for Sunderland on loan. So, I wonder if his move to Greece is just a last chance for him to be back on the spotlight especially considering that Panathinaikos has a good chance of advancing to the group stage of the Champions League.

In the meantime, the Greens have also signed another young player from Liverpool namely Sebastian Leto. Interestingly, Let played for rival club and Greek champion Olympiakos last season on loan. Just last month, everyone was expecting that he would be sold to the Greek club making it his permanent home especially. In fact, Olympiacos did make an offer to the English club but as we have been told, the two could not agree on the transfer fee. Panathinaikos stepped in and signed the player. If the transfer goes through as many expect, then Leto will become one of the most hated soccer players in Greek history. It is a rare occurrence that a player from either team will make a move to the other. I can’t even imagine the atmosphere at Karaiskaki stadium when Leto steps out in the green uniform. At any rate, I am willing to bet that his signing will be the most valuable for Panathinaikos as he showed last year that he can make a difference against the smaller teams in the Greek league. Losing points to such teams has been Pana’s Achilles heel for the last few years. This may just be the first time in a decade that a team may seriously be a contender to permanent champion from Piraeus.

AEK managed to take a 2-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game. Olympiakos was unable to mount much of an offense during the entire first half with only a nice shot from Leto handled nicely by goalkeeper Saja. It was obvious that something had to happen to change the flow of the game and Valverde took action in the second half by giving the young Matt Derbyshire (on loan from Blackburn Rovers) a chance. And he did not disappoint scoring his team’s first goal on his first touch on the ball giving new hope to Olympiakos.

After Derbyshire’s goal the flow of the game changed and Olympiakos took control fighting for the equalizer. Dudu managed to score the equalizer after a scramble in the box at the 70th minute of the game. It looked like the game was going to extra time when out of nowhere and after some excellent dribbling Skokko gave AEK the lead at the 90th minute. AEK looked destined to finally win a title after 7 years of misery. But Matt wasn’t done yet.

With seconds left to play, Matt Derbyshire scored his second goal of the night with a nice header sending the game to overtime. And the game was far from over still.

In extra time, Olympiakos took the lead for the first time in the game when Luciano Galletti received a great pass from team captain Predrag Dordjevic and slotted the 4th goal for his team with a nice shot to the corner of the net. But the game is not over until the fat lady sings and AEK still had some singing to do.

After Galletti and Papadopoulos were sent off with second yellow cards, AEK took full advantage of the 2-man advantage to score a 4th goal in the 107th minute of the game. The Greek Cup would be decided in penalty kicks. And so it did.

More than 30 penalty kicks were necessary to decide this game! Players from both teams had to take 2 penalties each when finally Olympiakos goalkeeper Antonis Nikopolidis took matters into his own hands to decide the game. First, he saved Pelletieri’s kick and then took over the penalty spot and just like a seasoned striker beat Saja to give the title and double to his team. And so the saga ended on a beautiful Saturday night at the Olympic stadium in Athens.

Congratulations to both team for playing such an entertaining game. If only all games in the Greek Superleagues were as exciting. One can only hope!

Having managed Olympiacos for less than a year, Ernesto has lead his team to their 12th Greek championship in 13 years, 3 games before the end of the season. In addition, after last Wednesday’s victory over Asteras Tripolis, Olympiacos will also play in the Hellas online cup final on 2 May 2009 against rival Athens club AEK.

Valverde only failed in European soccer competitions after failing to lead his team to the Champions League group stage. Olympiacos competed in the UEFA cup instead and even though the team advanced to the round of 32 with emphatic victories over Benfica and Hertha BSC Berlin, failed to continue falling to the French club Saint-Etienne. The blame for the rather poor performance in Europe is not necessarily Valverde’s fault since he joined the club far too late in the summer to build a competitive team. This, of course, will not be the case this year since the recent contract extension giving the manager plenty of time to select the players he needs in order to remain competitive in Greece and Europe.

The game started with January acquisition Matt Derbyshire opening the score with a header from a likely offside position. Panionios countered with two goals of their own but the Piraeus team scored two more and sealed the victory on the 71st minute with Brazilian midfielder Dudu. For the record, Derbyshire on loan from Blackburn has now scored 3 goals for his new team in 4 games; the Sunday game was the first time that that young player was a member of the starting eleven.

Olympiakos’ win against Panionios coupled with second place Panathinaikos’ draw against Astera Tripolis secured the Greek Superleague title for the former 3 games before the end of the season. Pananthinaikos owners were so upset for their team’s loss to lowly Tripoli that shortly after the game fined all the players to the tune of 15,000 Euro. Olympiakos is now 11 points ahead of second place Panathinaikos and PAOK which have to compete in a playoff competition at the end of the season for the privileged second place that leads to the prestigious European Champions League competition.

So, what is next for the Piraeus team? Well, now that the championship title is over with, the players and coach can focus all their energy on the remaining games for the Hellas Online Cup. Olympiakos is likely to be facing AEK Athens in the final if they manage to overcome Astera Tripoli at home in a few days. Winning the Cup as well as the championship this year would be the 4th time in a row for Olympiakos.

Leto did a great job replacing Dordevic on the wing after the latter suffered numerous injuries that have kept him off the field for most of the 2008-09 season. The young player showed off his talent and speed in a number of games becoming an important component of the team that so far has dominated the Greek Super League (for yet another season.) But alas, Leto is young and upon his arrival in Greece took little time to get into disagreement with team manager Ernesto Valverde.

At first, Ernesto was dissapointed with Leto because the latter did not work hard enough at practices. After some small punishments, Leto improved and as the season progressed became an important player for Olympiacos especially after the loss of Djordjevic early in the season. Rumors were that both the Argentine player and his new team were happy together and that there was a strong possibility that the player would remain in Greece for another year; Olympiacos was seriously considering purchasing the player to replace the soon to retire Djordjevic. Unfortunately, things are not going as planner. The disputes between the player and team manager have continued.

The apogee of these disputes was yesterday when Leto accidentally hit Valverde with a soccer ball after the latter had sent him to the dressing room for not putting much effort at practice. Sebastian was disappointed that he was kept off the team last weekend for the classic Greek derby between Olympiacos and Panathinaikos (the game ended in a draw changing nothing to the current Super League standings.) Apparently, Sebastian was upset with his manager’s decision and on the way to the change rooms he started kicking balls left and right. One of them, bounced off another object and then hit the manager in the back. Considering that team owner Socratis Kokkalis want to keep Ernesto as a manager for at least another year, it is likely that the player will be heading back to England or another team in April when the season is over.

This is very unfortunate because this player is absolutely needed in Olympiacos. I really hope that the two sides will find a peaceful resolution to their differences and both Ernesto Valverde and Sebastian Let will stay at Piraeus for many years to come.

Update: Leto has signed with rival club Panathinaikos starting in the 2009-10 season.

So far this season, team supporters can only be happy about their team’s performance in Champions League play. Panathinaikos managed 3 victories in the second round of the group stage to earn a spot in the top 16; most importantly, one of those victories came against jose Mourinho’s inter Milan in Italy nonetheless. Regardless, once more they have failed to keep up with Olympiakos in the Greek championship which the latter have won 12 times in the last 13 years. The arrival of Brazilian international Gilberto Silva gave much promise to Panthinaikos fans for a return to winning titles but his shaky performance on the pitch has definitely disappointed everyone.

Panathinaikos also complains often about the refereeing in the Greek championship. In the game against Iraklis, a goal scored by Mantzios in the 78th minute was disallowed as offside. Video replays showed that the player was probably covered by a defender on the far end but the linesman decided to indicate the offside; the truth is that the play is very hard to judge even after watching it several times on TV and considering that the linesman has to make a decision in a split second, his decision could have gone either way. That said, a team that has a budget as large as Panathinaikos, not to mention the many well known soccer stars in its roster, should be able to win this games scoring several goals instead of complaining about a borderline play.