Good morning/evening/afternoon/night, depending on where you're reading this, I'm very glad you could award this silly endeavour with a couple monents of your time. I'm Greek, and I adore the Greek Superleague. It's a disfunctional mess with postponed matches, accusations of rigged games and bought referees, a league where in order to avoid people eating eachother alive after every major match, we have to import the people who hold the whistle during the derbies. It is definitely one of the Leagues of all time and, somehow, we've been on an upwards trajectory for about half a decade now! Olympiacos has won the Conference League, it is the second consecutive season that a Greek club has featured in the Champion's League proper and as time passes, you see Greek clubs in the latter stages of the Conference and Europa League more and more. Gone are the days where we were languishing below Cyprus (the sneaky little brothers), Greece is living it big, and is fighting to enter the top 10 in the UEFA's coefficient rankings this very season. Success has of course brought in more spending, or perhaps more spending has brought in more success, it really is a "chicken and egg" kind of situation, and to unravel it would take more than a silly post on reddit. What I've always found intriguing however, is the reaction when people see X or Y plays in Greece, perhaps realising only after a big European performance (or disasterclass, it really depends). I've always find that very endearing, and a kind reminder that we're still a bit of a footballing hinterland in the grand schemes of things. So, please, let me educate you and let you know who (as of now, still 4 more days in our transfer window!) has ended up applying their trade, the beautiful game, in the land of souvlaki, tzatziki, marble and bailout agreements. To get things off to a bang therefore, I'll showcase the new arrivals, fancy and bizarre, expensive and cheap, that hit our extremely long shoreline this summer, the most expensive ever in Greek history (double the money we spent last summer!) Right, right, let's begin: Azzedine Ounahi Signed for 15m by Panathinaikos from Girona, the club's most expensive ever transfer Really, Greece is the best he can do? Well apparently so and I'm not complaining. The Moroccan midfielder, whose magic touch and scoring prowess threw Canada out of the World Cup, and shocked Luis Enrique in 2022, has found himself (back) in Greece. A successful loan-spell to the GIANTS (bias) of the sport saw him move from the Marseille bench to Girona, where he impressed, even though the Catalans ended up relegated. A bidding war ensued over the summer and, with the window quickly closing, Panathinaikos managed to beat out Ajax for the player and return him to the Greek capital, to the absolute shock of myself. Needless to say, I'm not complaining. Stefan de Vrij Free transfer from Inter to Panathinaikos Oh captain my captain! The Dutch defender and many, many times international for the national team saw his contract with Inter Milan expire this summer after a long career with the Italian champions. Panathinaikos, after watching complete footballing terrorism by literally all its center-backs last season, gave De Vrij a fat 2m p/y 1-year contract, with an option to extend, to pair him up in defence with fellow Milanese Captain (but for the other side of the rivalry) Davide Calabria. Iñaki Peña Signed for 3m by Panathinaikos from Barcelona Remember when he said he was basically Neuer? Well, he was probably wrong on that, but he still remains a very good goalkeeper, evident from the couple of MOTM performances he pulled out during our early summer qualifiers, where we looked positively disastrous i defence. Iñaki Peña comes to replace the failed FIFA wonderkids Alan Lafont and Bartłomiej Drągowski, whose blooper compilations last season (and the one before that for Drago) drove half the fanbase mad and the other delirious. I promise, last Panathinaikos transfer! Leon Bailey Signed for 5m by Olympiacos from Aston Villa See, I can talk about my enemies as well :) Leon Bailey, whose exceptional pace and dribbling made him a joy to watch with Bayer Leverkusen, spent the 5 seasons in Aston Villa~~'s operating table~~, pulling out some fantastic moments in the 23-24 season, before injuries and a lack of consistency sent him over to Roma, where he was disastrous. Seeking to recover his best self, Bailey joins Olympiacos and should he find form, he may well be the most dangerous player in the league. If he doesn't, well, Mr. Marinakis has his ways. Remo Freuler Free transfer from Bologna to Olympiacos One of the many Swiss internationals who seemingly only come into existence every two years, Remo Freuler has actually had a very successful career in Serie A with Bologna and Atalanta, alongside a pretty forgettable stint in Mr. Marinakis' Nottingham Forest (this may be a bit of a theme), choosing to head to Piraeus as he reaches the latter stages of his career. Regardless of his performance in Greece, you'll most definitely see him in the next Euros, some things just never change. Pablo Maffeo Signed for 3m by Olympiacos from Mallorca Now this one is just really funny. See how it's crossed out? Pablo Maffeo, professional ragebaiter and anger-management clinic advert, joined from Mallorca this summer. So, why is the photo attached showing him in a Valencia kit? Maffeo, bless his soul, was so piss poor in Olympiacos' UCL qualifiers against NEC that he was immediately sent out on loan with an option to buy. To add insult to injury, Jose Luis Mendilibar, who pushed for his transfer, was also shown the door this week. Talk about misery. Aritz Elustondo Free transfer from Real Sociedad to PAOK It has not been a very good summer for PAOK fans. Their golden child has left for Dortmund and then immediately tore his ACL, their best ever coach, Răzvan Lucescu, has departed for greener pastures and a combination of Anderlecht and Brann ensured that European football would end in August for the double-headed eagle of the north. Meaning no offence to the storied Real Sociedad captain, but he may well become the face of this dreadful season and the image above serves as a pretty good example of that. Well, at least your beloved coach at Sociedad isn't also in the league, in a rival team! Ah, right, yeah. Well. Lovro Majer Signed for 6m by AEK Athens from Wolfsburg The reigning champions may not have moved very much in the transfer window (why fix what works?) but they already hold the title of the most "wait, he plays WHERE" player in the league (Luka Jovic), so a bit more Balkan spice was all that was needed. Lovro Majer, once hailed as the successor to Luka Modric may not have quite lived up to that billing, but he still remains an exceptional midfield maestro, should he avoid injury. With 6 assists in 8 matches(!), it seems that he still has a lot to offer, and may well become the reason AEK becomes back-to-back champions. Right, enough with "big teams" and "household names" (kinda), time for some bullshit! Yoel Bárcenas Free transfer from Mazatlán to Iraklis It's time for some CONCACAF, baby! Yoel Bárcenas, a Panamanian legend with over 100 appearances for the country he captained to two World Cups, and for which he started in an unfortunate amount of globally-televised thumpings, has made his way to Europe for the first time, aged 32. I've absolutely no idea how or why the newly-promoted "Elder" sought out the services of this man, but the beffudling and completely out of left field move will probably feature on some Panamanian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in 5-10 years, and that is good to justify an inclusion in this list. Amine Bassi Free transfer from Huston Dynamo to Panaitolikos The adjustment period will be really weird for Amine Bassi. MLS to Greece and vice-versa is a pretty frequently traversed path, but this one is just... Odd. Briefly tied with title-contenders PAOK, the flairy Morrocan midfielder instead finds himself in relative minnows Panaitolikos, having to change from the Houston of 7m people to a town of about 60,000 which, without doing much research, may be the largest change in terms of population a player has experienced in the history of football. All that being said, Panaitolikos sits first after a record of three wins from three games so far this season, the best ever start for the club I affectionately call "Communist Burton Albion" so who knows, perhaps Bassi will get his first taste of European football next season (Barnsley could sadly not reach the UCL back in 2022) Roshon van Eijma Free transfer from RKC Waalwijk If I had a nickel for every member of the Curacao squad that made it to the World Cup this summer, I would've two nickels. And that's really weird. The relegation-threatened minnows from the poshest of Athenian suburbs have added van Eijma to a squad that already features fellow Carribean international Jeremy Antonisse, in what must sorely one of the oddest pair-ups in Greek football history. Adrian Șut Signed on loan from Al-Ain to Levadeiakos Levadeiakos' last season was one to remember. One of the league's smallest club, creating a group of players including literally about half of Panathinaikos' 22-23 roster (including Slovenian international Benjamin Verbič), managed to come within a pig's hair of making the championship play-off, which would've guaranteed european football. Unfortunately the pensioners avengers could not go all the way and now Levadeiakos has to rebuild its squad, with a new coach to boot, and fight for more realistic goals, such as not being relegated. Spearheading this so far pretty poor effort is many time Romanian international and former FSCB talisman Adrian Șut, who, after a season in the deserts of the UAE, decided that this quaint village a couple dozen kilometres outside of Athens is the ideal place to restart his career. For whatever reason. Honourable mentions: - Former Man City 3rd choice GK Stefan Ortega heads to Olympiacos, becoming a starter after almost a decade of professional bench-sitting - Danish international and former Leicester City wing-back Viktor Kristiansen signs for Panathinaikos on loan, attempting to recover his form and ability to walk, seemingly - Convicted sex-offender Rafa Mir hides from Spanish authorities in Thessaloniki with Aris, getting booed by everyone whenever he steps foot on the pitch - 36-time Iceland international Arnór Sigurdsson moves to newly-promoted Kalamata from Malmo, becoming the 3rd Icelandic international currently in the Greek Superleague Thank you for reading through this! no ai was used in its creation, i'm a luddite   submitted by   /u/KoupDetat [link]   [comments]