And then, Olympiacos from Greece. Not Valencia, not PSV, not any of the big five, not the Champions League, but a long-awaited return to the first world, yes a Europa League, yes a team with trophies in the windows that fights for local titles and not relegation. How is it not going to be good to leave Al-Rayyan in Qatar to feel the sacred fire of football again?
Without a doubt, it is good news that a player like James Rodríguez leaves that golden prison that he chose -for prioritizing other matters before the competition- and putting himself back on the international radar. It no longer matters how much or why, now it only matters how he will be able to reinsert himself into this new scenario, how he will counteract the injuries that haunt him when he pushes himself to the limit, how he will make himself essential at 31 years of age with those exasperating six-month breaks without play in the middle…
Olympiacos in perspective
What kind of team awaits you? A protagonist in Greek football and that offers him the European showcase he longed for, not the Champions League but the Europa League, second in importance on the Old Continent. That is already a monumental gain!
Olympiacos has 47 league titles, 28 Greek Cups and three Super Cups, a tournament of which it is the defending champion. In the local league today he is third, with 8 points in 4 outings, 4 points behind Panathinaikos, which has a perfect score (12 points).
What subject do you have pending? The Champions League, in which his best appearance was the quarterfinals in 1998-1999, a challenge that this season could not improve because in the second preliminary phase he was knocked out of the race by the Israeli Maccabi Haifa (5-1).
That has meant that the great priority of the season is the Europa League, in which he was from the third round prior to the group stage and left Slovan Bratislava (4-2, penalties) and fellow Greek Apollon (3 -1, penalties) to settle in group G, with Freiburg from Germany, Nantes from France and Qarabag from Azerbaijan. Accessible? Of course! But here it is worth mentioning a detail: if the team passes this first phase, then the left-hander will be able to play this tournament, since the inscriptions closed on September 2 and he did not make it. With the advance, ‘habemus European showcase’, for which the Greek cause already gained a loyal fan.
A friend and a promise in the template
Marcelo, James’s teammate at Real Madrid, must have had something (or a lot) to do with the letter of recommendation that would take him to Olympiakos. But he’s not the only good thing he expects on the roster.
In that locker room are Sime Vrsaljko (30 years old), the defender who shone at Atlético de Madrid and won the League and the Europa League (and incidentally knocked out Santiago Arias); Sokratis Papastathopoulos (34), another experienced player with a past at Borussia Dortmund, Arsenal and Milan; Konstantinos Manolas (31) another veteran defender who crossed paths with James in the 2014 World Cup; midfielder Yann M’Vila (32); Mathieu Valbuena (37), the midfielder of the scandal with Benzema in France and Youssef El Arabi (35), former Granada of Spain.
Have you noticed that they are all ‘thirties’ like James? That takes away the pressure of putting your life on the line against youngsters, not bad for a player who will make it a priority to get physically fit again. Thus, in the absence of only the official announcement, a rematch could appear for the left-hander, who will row from behind to scratch a place in the Colombian National Team again. Now, more than ever, everything depends on him.