Pini Gerhson left Olympiakos on the 2nd. On the 4th Olympiakos presented a new coach with Panagiotis Yannakis. Will Yannakis help Olympiakos win against teams like Real Madrid, Zalgiris Kaunas or Maccabi Tel Aviv?
I would love to hear YOUR opinion about that.
Yiannakis can and will change a lot of things in Olympiakos.
First of all the role distribution will change, if not drastically at least notably.
The Greek players will obviously have a bigger role in the team now. Olympiakos will be built around Vassilopoulos, Vassileiades, Mavrokefalides, Pridezis and so on… not only as a try to shake things up but in order to get them ready for the next seasons as Yiannakis will hang around Piraeus for about 2,5 years, at least.
Hell, even Papamakarios will go from a ‘not needed’ to a ‘squad rotation’ player.
Another player who I believe will benefit from Yiannakis arrival is Blakney. Blakney was Yiannakis’ brain in the court when Yiannakis led little Athens suburbs team Maroussi to the A1 and Cup finals…
Yiannakis is also good in psychology. Already in his first meeting with his players he told them that with a lot of work and patience they can lead Olympiakos to the top and that he will be there for them.
Obviously he mentioned the words work and patience not randomly but with a purpose. Meaning: forget what you knew and did (or didn’t) do with Gershon… under my management you will actually work, and work, and work, and work harder in the training sessions and at the same time hinting that he does not have the players he personally needs to make it to the top and releasing some pressure…
Yiannakis might not have the in-game tactical knowledge of Gershon but at least he has a steady philosophy. Defense and pace control. And I’m pretty sure he will create a few nice attacks which will aim at creating a free shot for Macas.
Of course I do not know how he will manage to convince Jackson, Woods and Greer to defend, but as I mentioned previously Papamakarios, Blakney (Teodosic too probably) will be getting more time, so Greer can now kiss those 25-30 minutes per game goodbye.
So can Jackson imo as Yiannakis can not stand players wandering around while his team are defending and I’m certain that he will prefer a slow but determined and obeying Tsakalides to become a huge scarecrow in Olympiakos paint.
Woods on the other hand is a mystery… and I do not thing Yiannakis will be wasting much time and thought on him as he isn’t even registered in Olympiakos A1 roster and I seriously doubt he will remain next season… so in other words, who cares?
I guess that now Gershon has left the Olympiakos fans boycott is over and we will be seing a packed (14000) SEF Arena in all Top16 games. Hell, I’m even considering attending Oly-Maccabi next Thursday myself and I’m not that fond of Olympiakos.
Another, long term, impact Yiannakis will have on Olympiakos is attracting Greek internationals to Olympiakos using his position and prestige… would you turn down your NT coach who you had as a poster in your bedroom at the age of 10 and was one of the reasons you started playing basketball in the first place? (see Eurobasket 1987).
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Simple answer would be no. I believe what Arkadios said is pretty much spot on, at least that’s what I expect him to do, but that would mean he would have to rely on second-rate players.
The current Olympiakos team is incompetible with Yiannakis’s usual strategy. I believe appointing Yiannakis as the new coach was a rush action, one meant to prevent Olympiakos’s fans from rioting rather than a sound, calm decision.
The timing couldn’t be worse either with Olympiakos facing Aris (twice, cup and regular season) and Panathinaikos in the team’s next few domestic games.
