The women's side is the story of the week
Olympiacos 2–0 Fostiras. Two goals after the break, and the women's team is 2 for 2 in the second division (1). That is the one result from this week with a clean, uncomplicated answer to it. The men's Super League side did not play. The club's week, then, belonged to the women, and they took it without fuss.
Worth stating plainly for anyone who skimmed the weekend: this is the Olympiacos women's football team, not the first team, and the 2–0 came in the Β' Εθνική, not the Super League. Different squad, different table, different stakes. Treat it as its own story and it reads well.
The Vargas deal died on a number, and it was always going to
Sevilla wanted €15–20m for Ruben Vargas. Olympiacos' offer fell well short of that, and the Swiss midfielder had his own priorities (8). After the fact, the Spanish press laid out the same version: the gap was financial and it was never closed (11) (15).
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Read that again and the summer window makes more sense. Olympiacos did not lose a race here, they declined to enter one at that price. For a club that has to sell to buy in most windows, walking away from a €15–20m wide man is a defensible position, not a failure.
It also points forward. Contact has already been made with OGC Nice over Hicham Boudaoui, with a winter move for the Algeria international on the table (16). Midfield, cheaper, younger. That is the pattern the Vargas file predicted.
Fifth, and the form line is doing the talking
Olympiacos sit 5th on 10 points from 5 games, +2 goal difference. The last five league and European results read W D L W W: Asteras Tripoli 0–1 Olympiacos, Volos NFC 1–1 Olympiacos, Olympiacos 0–1 OFI Crete, Olympiacos 2–1 Jagiellonia Bialystok, Levadiakos 0–1 Olympiacos.
The home defeat to OFI is the outlier that stings, because everything else this side has done on the road has been solid: three away trips, seven points, no defeats. A team that grinds out 1–0 wins in Tripoli and Livadeia is not in crisis. It is just not yet a team that wins at home when the game is there for it.
What to watch: Panathinaikos at home on Sunday
The derby lands on Sunday, October 11, at Karaiskakis (Super League). Then Marseille away in the Europa League on Thursday, October 15, and Panetolikos away three days later.
That is the week that decides whether 5th is a floor or a ceiling. A home win over Panathinaikos changes the whole read on this side. Anything less, and the away form stops being a strength and starts being the only thing keeping the season level.
