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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/AdminEating_Dragon on 2023-09-04 22:20:18.

If I wanted to be more judgmental, I could name the post “Marinakis goes in Bohely mode” or “Super Market Marinakis”. It wouldn’t be unfair after all, since our owner has multiple times in the past shown that patience is not one of his virtues, and his knee-jerk reactions and love for real-life football manager have led to sweeping changes to our squads.

This time though, the reason why it happened was there, and it had to happen.

Recap of last season:

Olympiacos, the most successful club in Greece, a club where winning the league title is the minimum requirement and losing it is a cause for crisis, booing and outrage, and has by far the largest budget in Greece, is coming from a comically (or tragically) poor season, which started in a bad way (elimination to Maccabi Haifa with a 0-4 home loss), continued with damage limitation (Pedro Martins was fired, Carlos Corberan replaced him, GK Vaclik put the club in the EL Groups by winning two penalty shoot outs against opponents Olympiacos should normally have no trouble dispatching), then with knee-jerk reactions to the obvious signs of decay in the squad (signing semi-retired Marcelo and walking diva James Rodgriguez), then with even worse results (dropping points left and right in the Greek league), then with more knee-jerk reactions (Corberan fired, Michel hired), ending 2022 with a winless streak of 15 European matches (!), entering 2023 with better results but not significantlly better performances, and ending the season with yet another coach change (Michel resigned) and a humiliating 3rd place in the Greek Super League, behind AEK and Panathinaikos (for the first time after 13 years behind Panathinaikos who has half the budget of Olympiacos nowadays).

And now?

Marinakis (finally!) understood that the model where there is no sporting director, the transfers are made by himself, his son, his glorified accountant Vrentzos, the recommendations of Jorge Mendes and other agents, and various other unorthodox methods, is not working (who could imagine).

Enter the person he hired to build the new Olympiacos: Antonio Cordon, the new sporing director.

Action no.1 needed to put this gargantuan mess (you’ll see why below) in order was hiring a coach who could change the (much hated at the end of last year) slow-paced defensive mentality the team had adopted since the last year of Pedro Martins to a more fluid and pretty for the eye football style, while also combining it with wins, entering EL Groups, and getting rid of the (dozens literally) players the club needed to get rid off.

The chosen coach was Spanish Diego Martinez, mostly known for leading Granada to an EL QF.

Cordon and Martinez’ task was not only strengthening the team with quality players within a relatively tight budget, but freeing the club from the salaries of 20+ players who were on loan (!) or simply unwanted anymore.

So here it is:

The players with a number were part of the squad at the end of last season, while the ones without were loaned to other clubs. We can split this tsunami of departures in Groups:

Thank you for your service, time to move on

Nobody had complains from what Valbuena and Mvila offered to the club, but it was time to part ways. Valbuena has reached an age (and speed) where he cannot follow the necessary pace, and Mvila also regressed a lot last year and was demanding a lot of money to renew. He still hasn’t found a club offering him what he is looking for. Sokratis Papastathopoulos also enters this group, albeit his stint with the club was more polarizing, since his age and lack of explosion were showing more and more, but he also had some stand-out performances. Oussyenou Ba also had his ups and down during his Olympiacos career, but his total lack of consistency and habit of getting red cards tired everyone after a point, and it was time to part ways (on loan for now).

We’d like to keep you but…

Bakambu wanted us to match the salary a UAE club was offering, not possible. Canos wanted to go to Valencia, rumour has it he wasn’t a fan of the brutal atmosphere every time we dropped points and the non-stop criticism and verbal attacks (this is part of Olympiacos reality when the club isn’t winning). Samassekou was on loan and he was a bench player, thus too expensive to buy.

Celebrate, they left!

I don’t think any sale of a player has been celebrated from the fanbase as much as the one of Oleg Reabciuk. A technically untalented, physically mediocre player suited more for athletics than football who made everyone’s eyes hurt every time he played for 2 years, finally left! And a club actually gave 6M to buy him! Bouchalakis came very close to win this contest of “player everyone was happy to say goodbye to”. With the speed of a geriatric snail and his signature passing the ball in parallel or behind and dragging the opponents by the shirt because he can’t follow them, he should have left years ago. Last but not least, the permanent resident of the medical center, the glass-man from Cape Verde, Garry Rodrigues. He wasn’t a terrible player (just a mediocre one) but he was injured all the time. For years, and the club knew it when they signed him. And he kept getting injured while playing for Olympiacos.

Why did they ever come?

Nobody understood why Bytyqi was ever bought, probably a favour to some agent. Kasami returned because he is friends with Marinakis’ son (…), showed he is not in the physical fitness of a professional footballer, and left. Kristinsson had arrived in order to maintain the good relations with his former club Larisa (now relegated) and was always between 2nd and 3rd choice GK - he went to the newly promoted Kifisia to be a starter.

The ones already out

Onyekuru will be remembered as one of the meme transfers of Olympiacos, fortunately Adana Demirspor qualified for Europe and there was a mandatory option to buy him in case this happened. Pepe is a Mendes player with neither the quality nor the personality to play to a club like us, he continues his…loan journey on Pafos. Kane is another weird transfer that should have never happened, Pafos luckily liked him and paid to keep him for good. Zickernagel is a strange case cause objectively he isn’t a bad player, but he never showed it in the (very few) chances he had last summer, and essentially didn’t want to stay afterwards. Thank you for the money, Club Brugge.

The youngsters

Sourlis and Kalogeropoulos come from the B team, got a few chances, but for a youngster to stand in Olympiacos, he needs the quality of Tsimikas or Retsos and a bit of luck. If you’re just mediocre, you aren’t getting chances. Same goes for Kitsos (who was already on loan to Omonia). Dabo has never played for the club, it was probabaly a movement of merchandise agreed with some agent. Ramon was bought as a prospect in January but failing to become a starter over Reabciuk was a huge red flag - the guy is too raw, so he went to Segunda to get minutes. Aguibou is an odd case, he has the physique and the athelticism, but hasn’t improved his technique (like at all) since he arrived, and he loved Atromitos in the last semester, so he stays there for another year. Holsgrove was bought this year to be loaned (another agent deal). Lovera is not a youngster anymore, but he never showed the potential for which he was bought, and is returning to Argentina.

The backstabber

Hwang In-Beom was the club’s best player last year. A standout presence in the midfield, fast, fighting spirit, playing with one touch, he was immediately loved by the fans. His presence outside the field was also flawless. Thus it came as a big shock (and hurt a lot) to find out that he demanded from Marinakis to be either released or sold for a small fee to go to a big league (that’s what his newly hired lawyer-agent claimed), saying he would go to courts to prove his contract doesn’t stand legally anymore otherwise (!), and getting to a plane to Korea one day before our match against Genk. Marinakis got pissed and he was considered out of team until today, when Red Star bought him for 5.5M, taking advantage of the friendly relationship between the clubs and the owners - otherwise Marinakis would have left him with no action for a year easily.

Not out yet

The transfer window in Greece ends September 11th, and Fadiga is heading to PAS on loan (another youngster who has barely ever played for Olympiacos). Aboubakar was a horrible transfer (essentially a bribe to Aris owner) and is sitting on his contract, refusing to leave and only a Saudi/Qatari club might offer him that money (Marinakis has no problem to say “then you won’t play” when players do what Maguire does). Kunde kind of got forgotten, probably he will go to Turkey. Randelovic is a forever talent, on loan in Russia last year, probably Turkey too. Leidner is injured until January and Hassan until October, so they’re staying out of team until January. Cisse is a more complex case because he was a player who offered a lot to the club, but his time, much like Ba, is due to leave. There are also rumours that Cisse, Ba and the young French guys are out of favour since Marinakis is not b…

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