Things are not going well in Olympiakos. Ever since the conquest of the Greek Cup things have not been going as the Angelopoulos brothers might have expected. There are certain things that the casual onlooker might ignore.. lots of reports in Greek media are suggesting that coach Panayotis Giannakis has lost control of his troops. And when there is no order in a team, there is no purpose and no focus. That could easily explain the devastating victory of Panathinaikos, thus securing the very first step towards conquering the Greek league title.
There was particularly one incident, as reported by the Greek portal redplanet.gr, that is affiliated to Olympiakos. It says that Yannis Bouroussis object being sent back to the bench. The player wasn't very happy with coach Giannakis' decision and he did say:"Why are you takine me out? Why me?". Bouroussis then proceded to moan at assistant coach Milan Tomic who decided to do the politically correct thing and give Bouroussis an earful, thus restoring order.. temporarily.
According to sportnnet.gr, Teo Papaloukas and Patrick Beverley had a verbal argument that didn't escalate to anything worse, thanks to the intervention of Scoonie Penn. It seems that Papaloukas kept making comments about Beverley's plays and Beverley didn't take so well. It's quite reasonable for the uber-experienced Papaloukas to be making comments to the younger players but Beverley felt that his pride was attacked and proceded to retaliate. This incident kept coach Giannakis in the locker rooms for a prolonged period time forcing coach Obradovic to go to the press conference by himself.
The general consensus is that, although these events were made known, there are even more bigger or smaller ones that the public doesn't know. The lack of discipline is attributed to coach Giannakis', who in turn has become "persona non grata" for the fans of Olympiakos. The vast majority of them through internet forums and radio stations are expressing their dismay and it seems that faith has been lost to their favourite team. Giannakis has also become a target of all the Olympiakos-affiliated media and it is very likely that he will be the first one to go if things go pear-shaped. The self-destructive behaviour of the players and the coach of Olympiakos might force this team to end the season sooner than expected.. and without the league's title.
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