Greek Championship starts next weekend

Greek Volleyball Championship will begin on 13th of October. Olympiakos for sure is the biggest favorite to win the championship of 2012-13 season. 

Participating teams are Iraklis Thessalonikis, Foinikas Syrou, Pamvohaikos, Aris Thessalonikis, Olympiakos, Lamia, PAOK, Ethnikos Alexandroupolis, Kifisia, Panathinaikos, Niki Aiginiou and Milonas. 

First round matches are Lamia – Olympiakos, Pamvohaikos – Milonas, Kifisia – Foinikas Syrou, Panathinaikos – Ethnikos Alexandroupolis, Aris Thessalonikis – Niki Aiginiou and PAOK – Iraklis Thessalonikis.

It is obvious that Olympiakos has the most experienced and powerful team. In my opinion this year Olympiakos can’t lose the championship. Foinikas Syroy who has also a strong team will play at the finals. On the other hand Iraklis Thessalonikis and Pamvohaikos are less effective than the previous year. This year Iraklis Thessalonikis and Panathinaikos are facing huge financial problems. Aris Thessalonikis and Kifisia had no foreign players while many other teams decided to start the championship with only one or two foreign athletes. The majority of the teams had worst team than the previous years.

There were not too expensive transfers during the summer and many teams created their rosters during the last days. Olympiakos by taking the Bulgarian left handed diagonal Boyan Yordanov, the middle blocker Nikolaos Smaragdis (from Iraklis), the outside hitters Kostas Xristofidelis (from Iraklis) and Jernej Potocnik (from Pamvohaikos) is ready to play in a higher level. Finally my small advice for the “betaholics” volleyball fans is to be very careful while betting in Greek championship’s matches because the financial problems will probably create unstable effectiveness of the participating teams.