The Super League 1 championship is returning to our daily lives. A league that most people love… hate, but the truth is that even with all the problems it brings, it somehow magically manages to be at the forefront and make things more interesting. winter weekend.

The new marathon has already started on Friday with the Panthessaliko in Volos, and the regular season will end in two days on March 11-12. Playoffs and playoffs will begin immediately after that and will last until May 13th and 14th.

Of course, this year’s race, the 64th since the creation of the First National Team, will definitely be cut in half, as in November and December we will have the first World Cup in Qatar in the history of the organization. held in winter. Thus, the first round will end on 13.11, and the second will begin shortly before Christmas (21-22.12) with the matches of the 14th round, with no way to predict how this break will affect the teams and players.

Logic wants more interest and competition in the league this year as it gives more European tickets for next season, with the first two places leading to the Champions League qualifiers and the remaining three leading to the Conference League.

Last year’s champion Olympiacos is presented as the favorite to add this year’s trophy to their collection, with the bookmakers even well ahead of the runner-up in odds. And this despite the fact that the “red-whites” have not yet shown themselves with good competitiveness in their European obligations. Also relative to the rest of the title contenders, this will be the only team that will keep more than two watermelons in one armpit, even with new coach Carlos Corberan on his bench, who is called to swim in unknown waters for the first time in his 39 years.

More tickets to Europe this year. The winter holidays before the World Cup are unprecedented.

AEK, which was a big loser last year as it didn’t even go to Europe, is entering a new era this year. A new stadium and a return to New Philadelphia gives her a huge boost that she will take advantage of and will almost certainly be able to stay in title orbit for the rest of the race. In addition, it is no coincidence that despite the fact that Enos finished 5th last season, he is considered the second favorite for the title by the “experts”.

Panathinaikos seems to be the most “connected” of the teams that will compete for the cup at the moment. Not so much on the playing side, as there are pieces of the puzzle to be put together, but with the unity that exists within its ranks, from the football section to the stands. The exclusion from Europe caused no cracks in the foundation that Jovanovic laid, and now Leforo has every right to dream of much more than winning the Cup.

PAOK is a team that enters the race with more challenges than the rest. A premature goodbye from the Conference League sparked a lot of introspection and murmuring when Lucescu was asked to find immediate solutions as winning the title this year appears to be the only path for the Two Heads. Finally, Aris, who has inherited his course from last year, is looking to claim something more than 3rd place. A good run last season and the addition of a number of capable players over the summer brought excitement, but it was tempered somewhat by an ignominious departure from Europe.

From now on, Asteras Tripoli, OFI, Volos and PAS Ioannina are the teams that will try to break into the big ones in pursuit of 6th place in the playoffs, while Atromitos and Panaitolikos, who did not succeed in the last league, are looking for a way to return . Ionikos is in question, which, although it was 11th in the regular season finals, finished in 7th place after the playoffs. Lastly, Lamia and also the re-promoted Levadeiacos are the two teams that have set themselves the first goal of staying in the division.

One of the elements of the Super League that comes under heavy criticism every year is the lack of Greek players on the teams’ roster. While 196 of the 424 players entered by clubs as of Thursday evening are Greek (46.2%), very few of them are first choice, especially for the Big Five teams. the obligatory presence of a certain number of Greeks in the original scheme did not advance anything.

So the league began with a desire for all of us to get rid of the toxicity that accompanies it every year and highlight its real protagonists, which are the players, not agents or referees.