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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

southmelb said:
He has a little baby now so i dont think you will see him play ofc until the playoffs in Auckland.
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Good point. Better for his family and for the club he stays in Melbourne for as long as possible prior to the finals in May.
 
From what i see on social media Lopez,Jankovic, Eliopoulos, Lampard, Pasquali and Bonada are the notable players that have been left behind.

I would have kept one of Tommy G or Menelaou here but both look gone. Sam Pouta seems to be the one going to Honiara.

You would assume an ultra defensive formation against gully as we have nothing in midfield outside Pasquali.
 
southmelb said:
From what i see on social media Lopez,Jankovic, Eliopoulos, Lampard, Pasquali and Bonada are the notable players that have been left behind.

I would have kept one of Tommy G or Menelaou here but both look gone. Sam Pouta seems to be the one going to Honiara.

You would assume an ultra defensive formation against gully as we have nothing in midfield outside Pasquali.
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So we are going with the half seniors/half Under 23s strategy. Let's see how that pans out.
 
Son of Sam said:
So we are going with the half seniors/half Under 23s strategy. Let's see how that pans out.
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Its really risky as you could get done in both competitions. Our backline is largely in tact but we have absolutely nothing outside Bonada going forward tomorrow night. Yet in the ofc we will have the question marks over the keeper and backline.

Its obvious how the gully game will try to be managed, be compact, deep and try release Bonada into space. I think we could have held back 1 more mid to help solidify the spine of the team.
 
southmelb said:
Its really risky as you could get done in both competitions. Our backline is largely in tact but we have absolutely nothing outside Bonada going forward tomorrow night. Yet in the ofc we will have the question marks over the keeper and backline.

Its obvious how the gully game will try to be managed, be compact, deep and try release Bonada into space. I think we could have held back 1 more mid to help solidify the spine of the team.
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I think I have an idea of what they are doing. The coaches have surmised that we did not have to send our full strength squad over to win those 2 games (or at least get some results to keep us well clear of 5th). So why waste all our experience and talent over there? Leave some here to improve our chances against Gully and Thunder.

But I suspect we will be sending our Under 23's for the next hub, in order to keep our best team here for Preston and Oakleigh.
 
I wonder if we beat Vanuatu if we bring a couple more home for dandy thunder. 2 wins pretty much give us a top 3 finish, a win in this hub and a win in the catchup game is enough.
 
southmelb said:
I wonder if we beat Vanuatu if we bring a couple more home for dandy thunder. 2 wins pretty much give us a top 3 finish, a win in this hub and a win in the catchup game is enough.
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If we bring players back, we have to send players over there .... I am pretty sure we would have to pay for those extra flights. So that seems highly unlikely
 
Son of Sam said:
If we bring players back, we have to send players over there .... I am pretty sure we would have to pay for those extra flights. So that seems highly unlikely
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Could we just have fewer on the bench for the 2nd game? We have sent 17 players over there.
 
Souk said:
So tomorrow's lineup... something like?

Lopez
Burchmore Jankovic Eliopolous Lampard

O Sullivan Pasquali Papadimitriou

Dovison Bonada Skapoulas
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Seems like a solid list for South that should be getting the job done against a Green Gully side that is currently in wooden spoon position in NPL Victoria and has also conceded the most goals in the entire comp.
 
southmelb said:
From what i see on social media Lopez,Jankovic, Eliopoulos, Lampard, Pasquali and Bonada are the notable players that have been left behind.

I would have kept one of Tommy G or Menelaou here but both look gone. Sam Pouta seems to be the one going to Honiara.

You would assume an ultra defensive formation against gully as we have nothing in midfield outside Pasquali.
Click to expand...

I can see Giannakopoulos playing Centre Back with Inglese, and in the midfield you would likely have Menelaou and Leech in the Honiara hub matches.
 
southmelb said:
I wonder if we beat Vanuatu if we bring a couple more home for dandy thunder. 2 wins pretty much give us a top 3 finish, a win in this hub and a win in the catchup game is enough.
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You never know. Maybe 1-2 players may fly home earlier than the rest of the squad to play in the Dandenong Thunder match.
 
Son of Sam said:
But I suspect we will be sending our Under 23's for the next hub, in order to keep our best team here for Preston and Oakleigh.
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By then hopefully we would have a top 2 finish pretty much locked in. Don't forget that in the last regular hub, we play PNG Hekari, Bula FC and Tahiti United who are all bottom 3 on the ladder. We can give up the Auckland match and let them finish first. We should be able to defeat PNG Hekari and Bula FC with our weakened squad.

But spot on - for the last hub in Fiji, you send the weakest squad you can.
 
It seems Uchida, Giannakopoulos, Painter-Andrews, Cocks, Swibel, and Menealou have gone to Honiara. I would have kept one of Uchida or Cocks in Melbourne just to provide some attaching edge to the NPL team.

That means Bonada will play the striker role back in Melbourne.
 
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Starting XIs in both competitions:

SMFC vs Vanuatu United
Charlston
Giannakopoulos
Inglese
Gorr-Burchmore (I think that's him in the pic? Otherwise he'll be playing in Melb)
Painter-Andrews
Leech
Menelaou
Pope
Uchida
Cocks
Swibel


Green Gully vs SMFC
Lopez
Jankovic
Eliopoulos
Lampard
O'Sullivan (if he's in Honiara, then it will be a Under23 player)
Pasquali
Papadimitriou
Skapoulas
Dovison
Under23 player
Bonada


We are strong going forward in Honiara, and strong in defence in Melbourne.

I can see Friday's fixture at Green Gully being a match where we keep it tight at the back and try and pinch a result. It wont be pretty to watch, but the 3 points are paramount at this stage.
 
Pasqualli and bonada are also on ofc squad ahown
Ofc players
Singh
Messarouni
Bonada
Swibel
Cocks
Lackey
Uchida Leech
Menelaou
Pasquali
Pope
Burchmore
Giannakopoulos
Coveny
Inglese
Painter Andrews
Charlston
Trenkov

Players for gully
Javi
Janko
Eliopoulos
Janko
Osullivan
Papadimitriou
Dovison
Skapoulas
Durso
U23s
 
I think we got lucky with playing Altona and Bentleigh so far, and face Gully and Thunder over next 8 days. They’re all pretty much bottom teams which we might get away with fielding weaker starting XIs.

If some of these youth players can step up and show their abilities, then we may have uncovered some future starting XI players.
 
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