Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Olympiacos B has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikos Lolis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Antonio Zarzana had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nikolaos Pelkas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Position 8 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olympiacos B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nikolaos Pelkas after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Position 8 and 14 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Fanis Bakoulas was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Olympiacos B will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.50 for the rest of it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fanis Bakoulas and Olympiacos B agree another 5 years.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Kalamata.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Olympiacos B have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Gustavo Mancha was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Position 7, 11 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nikolaos Pelkas after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Panionios defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Successful dribbles: 11. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
7.71, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Olympiacos B can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Gustavo Mancha and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Nikos Lolis has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nikolaos Pelkas, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.35 for the rest of it.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A Olympiacos B teenager takes the young player award
Erik Hamza is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Erik Hamza, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.31
A mark of 8.31 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
1 for Apostolos Martinis, marked 7.84, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olympiacos B this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nikolaos Pelkas on a 3‑2 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Antonio Zarzana had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gustavo Mancha and Olympiacos B agree another 4 years.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Konstantin Plish is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
0‑1 to Chania, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Nikolaos Pelkas to a room that had heard them before.
Fanis Bakoulas has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Fanis Bakoulas had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Olympiacos B can pretend not to have heard.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nikolaos Pelkas after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The one goal every signing is asked about until it comes. It has come, and a press-conference question has been retired.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Antonis Dama
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.