Back to football and just soccer

Starting from the basics. The defeat in Eindhoven to the Netherlands is not only unshocking, it is expected, and is factored into the qualifying calendar. The progress the national team has made in the past four years is undeniable and undeniable.

However, he’s not there to be considered anything different in a ninety-minute match against the dominant ‘Urani’.

But the picture in “Phillips Stadium” was neither ordinary nor on schedule. It was bad. The worst in recent years. The national team did not bother the Netherlands at all, did not bother, did not challenge, did not even react when the “Oranges” lifted the handbrake after 3-0 in the first half, conceded goals very easily, had many of them one-on-one on a bad night, which led to The team tag is completely negative.

Sign reading, even after the holiday, could not be otherwise. Because its beginning was not football. Good and holy are the crowns of valor, courage and manhood, on the eve of the game of federal art.

But as a reminder: we are talking about football in 2023. This is completely outdated (even in a completely subjective judgment), it does not justify ambitions and expectations.

Ghost calls

Especially when they followed the turn caused by the calls. It goes without saying that every voter has the right to evaluate as he believes, and to judge as he sees as the most appropriate and beneficial to serve his plan.

But it is not our job to pat ourselves on the back dismissively, nod our heads in agreement and support anything. And our job is to seek explanations – always in good faith and in good faith. For anything not just for the inexplicable appearance. Football interpretations.

And it is obligatory – without forgetting the obvious – that these things be given. Not to mention the “strange tensions”, over-emphasizing “imaginary phone calls” and limiting them to internal consumption only “that the club knows about”.

What is most likely is that the Blue and White team will not avoid defeat tonight either against Fortounis, or with Konstantelias, or with Dovikas, or with Alexandropoulos, or with anyone else who was wrongly excluded from the 26th round.

But what can be salvaged is to change the focus of the discussion. We won’t be, a week from now, all of us, in and out of the locker room, in the media, on social media and elsewhere, on a witch hunt, serving (slowly it will be lost…) petty politics, exploiting the hype to advance interests no matter what. The national team, no matter the goal, no matter the purpose of this bakery, which doesn’t really care about anything other than being in the final stretch of a big event.

Nothing like this has been done in years. Since the beginning of the term of the previous voter. It did not enter the public domain.

They were not successful years, except for what is clear regarding the quality of this batch of international players, which is the first in the last group in the Nations League.

However, the improvement, the progress, the desire to achieve more, the confidence of the international players, the unanimity in the dressing room, the solidarity to achieve the goal, the excellent atmosphere in the team, everything was – and still is – very clear. They practically prevented any movement in other situations and times.

We even remembered them this week, a few days ago and not after celebrating the heavy defeat against the Netherlands. With specific responsibility. Without good reason, inexplicably and with – as proved tonight – distinctly confusing results.

The national team was forced to concede three goals in those memorable matches with Italy and Armenia at the Olympic Stadium in June 2019 and the tragic events that followed. It feels like a century ago. And not only at the competitive level, but above all, from forgetting those non-competitive events that had dominated until that summer.

This forgetting, this change, is due to the dedication and effort of all those who contributed to this period, including the footballers themselves, of course. They are the ones who carried the cross, the ones who really, based on their quality and performance, deserve to be at a big event.

They must not allow anything to jeopardize what they deserve, and what they long to claim. Defeat against Holland is not a curse. Even if he comes out looking bad. It hurts, it destroys, it disturbs, but it does not dissolve, it does not destroy.

It is sufficient in the final account, in the aggregate (not necessarily these qualifications, since in any case from the beginning we knew our position, our role, and our capabilities) to form what must be done, to be: brackets.

And let us close this bracket tonight, in Eindhoven. Without opening it to allow it to erode further. Without continuing with anything other than football, without influencing and gaining time and space in everyone’s discussion and thinking.

This team doesn’t deserve it. Because football, it has. And it has a lot.