Olympiacos has the talent to dominate domestically and in Europe, but its management model under Evangelos Marinakis remains the biggest question.
Olympiacos has the potential to be not only a dominant domestic team, but also to put on a show at the European level. Proof of that is their most recent continental title, the UEFA Conference League, which they won in 2024.
However, even then, no one felt it was possible to win that European title, which, by the way, is the first European title a Greek club has won in football history.
And there are several reasons why this happens.
To begin with, the issue of owner Evangelos Marinakis is always controversial to discuss because he has many supporters within the club’s fan base, though others do not hesitate to call him out when necessary.
Marinakis owns not only Olympiacos but also Nottingham Forest in the Premier League and Rio Ave in the Portuguese league.
Let’s say that in this dynamic of having these three clubs, Olympiacos is the middle brother, because if a player from the Greek club does not end up measuring up and is young, they usually loan him out or sometimes sell him to the Portuguese club, while if a player from the Portuguese club breaks out and performs well, they usually send him to Olympiacos so that he can play at the highest level there, considering that the red and whites are always in European competitions.
Something similar happens with Nottingham Forest. When a player there underperforms, they usually consider loaning him to Olympiacos.
It should be clarified that this does not happen in every case, but there are some very clear cases in which this has happened, such as with winger Jota Silva, who did not perform in the Premier League and was loaned out and subsequently sold permanently to Olympiacos, where he has generally been doing well so far.
This model sounds logical, but in practice it can be counterproductive.
Without a clear, defined sporting strategy for each club, sustaining success year after year is very difficult.
It is also not that simple, nor is it black and white, to say that Olympiacos is the home for Nottingham Forest’s leftovers. It is not like that.
A clear example is the player we already mentioned, Jota Silva, who is doing very well, but the necessary profiles for the project often go unsigned. Instead, teams sign players for any position, and the coach adapts them to his squad and plans.
For several years, and this is something very unusual at Olympiacos, José Luis Mendilibar was on the bench, and that was a sign that things were going well and that they were actually working on a specific sporting project for the club.
However, it has been criticized that during those years, there was no real cohesion between the sporting department and the coach, or rather, that their player selection failed to identify the necessary profiles.
In other words, it was often criticized that Mendilibar asked for players he did not need, when the profile that was clearly necessary was different, which prevented them from transcending again at the European level and from dominating domestically again in an overwhelming manner in Greece.
Olympiacos needs not only to attract young talent, because they already did that, and from our point of view, they did it very well this summer by attracting players such as Gustavo Puerta, Gustavo Sá, Armando 'Hormiga' González, among others.
But it is also necessary for them to handle the timing of their decisions well.
Firing a coach with the season already underway, barely underway, and after getting good results, considering that the only bad result was the defeat against NEC in the Champions League qualifying rounds, is highly questionable.
They have already hired Imanol Alguacil, and there is nothing to be done about it now. Now we need to build this coach's confidence and let him develop his footballing idea.
The problem is that if Alguacil does not satisfy Olympiacos’ board within about three or four months, they will most likely fire him again, and everything will have to start from scratch.
From our point of view, that's also a very common mistake in how Marinakis and his staff manage the club.
Only time will tell us how things will fall into place and what will happen afterward, but if it is only about talent and quality players, Olympiacos has everything they need to become dominant domestically again and to go deep at the European level again, even in the Europa League, which is one step above the already-conquered Conference League.
However, that is only the theory; in practice, the coach’s strategy, the board’s confidence, and many other factors come into play, and, as we have already explained, Olympiacos has always fallen short in managing properly.
