Photos - PAOK football club
Tomorrow PAOK's coach will announce the composition of the team for the visit to Veria on Saturday and the impatience is great, as Dimitar Berbatov is expected to debut in the Thessaloniki team.
Following the initial enthusiasm of the acquisition of such a famous and high-class professional player, the moment of sanity has come. How will the star fit in the work of the whole team and especially how will he interact with PAOK other striker Stefanos (Klaus) Athanasiadis?
"We are talking about incredible quality and great football genius. I am happy that he is with us. We will win and we will learn a lot from him," Berbatov’s new teammate midfielder Dimitris Pelkas shares his impressions of him. Mitko, as the Greek sports journalists are calling him already, seems to have integrated into his new team and he is involved in the joint training sessions, as seen in the picture below.
The truth is that how Athanasiadis and Berbatov will work together and how the success of this duo will affect the game of the whole team is giving Croat Igor Tudor the greatest headache. He has studied the game of the Bulgarian for some time, discussed it with his assistants and players and, as reported by the Greek media, he has assured owner Ivan Savidis that there "could be chemistry" between Athanasiadis and Berbatov and they could become PAOK’s top guns.
Tudor said for the sports site Sport24.gr that because of his exceptional technique and intellectual game, Berbatov can play as a "hidden" striker behind Klaus. In this way, the Bulgarian will have the opportunity to assist and score goals. If at any given time the match develops in the two parts of the field Klaus and Mitko will run in parallel, thereby increasing the risks for the defence of the opponent.
In difficult matches when PAOK will have to play defensively, Berbatov and Athanasiadis will change roles - Klaus will stay back and press the opponent in the middle of the field, and the Bulgarian will remain the top edge of the team.
The two central strikers are expected to be actively supported by the two midfielders, Albanian Ergis Katze and Dimitris Pelkas. They have been assigned the key role to take advantage of every mistake of the opponent, and to "steal" balls. According to the statements by Igor Tudor, the two young players have the lungs and technique to quickly take the ball to the field of the opponent and to the feet of Berbatov and Athanasiadis.
These are, in general, the tactics developed by the team during its training sessions at present and we will see very soon how it will look on the field, in real terms.