Greece is the word for Spanish Players part 2

La Primera Division is the best league in the world, but many players and coaches from Spain find shelter in Greece. A few comments on the Super League before we get into the Spanish players and coaches who plied their trade in Greece this past season.

Two weeks ago, the bubble burst or rather a bomb exploded with a match fixing scandal erupted which involved presidents of teams! The dirty secrets were now out in the open, now the case will go to the courts.

Now, lets speak about football. Olympiakos won the championship, and AEK the Greek Cup, both teams were helmed by a Spanish coach, Ernesto Valverde (ex Espanyol, Villarreal and Athletic coach) and Manolo Jimenez (ex Sevilla coach), respectively.

Olympiakos is the most successful team in Greece and have in their ranks five players from Spain. David Fuster was one of the stars or MVPs. He scored 12 goals in 29 appearances and helped the team to win many matches! Albert Riera who has played at Mallorca, Espanyol and Liverpool, scored 6 goals, but his performance was below expectations. He wasn’t the dominated winger he was in Espanyol. It would be wrong to criticize Moises Hurtado, he was unlucky with injuries and played only 18 matches. Next season, two more Spanish players will play for Olympiakos. Javito who didn’t get playing time at Deportivo this season, and Ivan Marcano (on loan from Villarreal). Olympiakos coach Ernesto Valverde easily won the League, as he did two years prior. He is a great coach for the Greek league and I am positive he will return to La Primera in the near future.

Two Spanish players played this season at Panathinaikos - Josu Sarriegi and Luis Garcia. The first, who played in the Greek championship since 2007, is an average player who has a good work rate. The best days of Luis Garcia are past him. You might recall he won the Champions League with Liverpool. Garcia played only 14 matches this season. He will play next season at Puebla in Mexico.

The coach of AEK is Manolo Jimenez. The former Sevilla coach managed to win the Greek Cup, with a team that had many economic problems. In the middle of the season, AEK took on loan Michel from Birmingham City. He played 15 matches and was generally pretty good. Next season in the team is bringing Jose Carlos and Cala from Sevilla on loan to replenish the squad.

Victor Vitolo plays for PAOK. Maybe the level of the 26year old footballer isn’t up to par for La Primera Division, but fits in well for the Greek league. Last season he played 25 matches and scored two times.

Aris has three Spanish players in their roster, but none of them were any good last year. Oriol Lozano, who spent six years in Racing Santander, wasn’t the first choice for the center back position. He was pretty mediocre. He played ten matches.
Toni Calvo was even worse. He started the season with Aris, but he was shipped off to Parma (loan). The Greek team wants to sell him now. Cristian Portilla came in during the winter transfer market. He played nine matchesand scored one goal. His initial performances with his new team were positive.

Written by Konstantinos Efthimiadis