Stanic is the signal this window needed
Petar Stanic posted his goodbye to Ludogorets. The next stop is Piraeus, and the fee lands somewhere between €9m and €10m (1). That is not a depth signing. That is a statement, and it is the clearest signal yet of what Mendilibar wants his attack to look like next season.
Stanic is an attacking midfielder who can operate wide or inside, comfortable on the ball in tight spaces, and productive in the final third. Olympiacos already added Jota Silva on loan from Nottingham Forest with an option to buy. Now they have committed real money for another creator. Mendilibar is not tinkering around the edges. He is rebuilding the supply line.
The Smajlović signing from Sandefjord for €6.5m fills out the picture. A 22-year-old centre-back with room to grow, bought to start, not to sit. New spine, new wide options. The squad is taking shape.
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Leuven 1–1: nothing to panic about, plenty to watch
The friendly against Leuven ended 1–1, André Luiz and Mourou getting the goals (3). Pre-season results are not the metric that matters. What matters is minutes in the legs and the manager seeing patterns emerge. Mendilibar got both.
The shape will interest him most. With Stanic and Jota Silva arriving, the wide areas suddenly have competition. Who plays on the right, who plays on the left, and what happens to the incumbents, those are the questions that will define the next three weeks. Pre-season friendlies are a casting session. This one looked like exactly that.
The back line is Smajlović's to own
The defence was the investment priority this window for a reason. Olympiacos finished second last season, 66 points, +34 goal difference, but the margin behind first was the wound that lingered. Smajlović arrives as the solution, and at 22 he is the kind of asset the club can build around or sell on at a profit. Either way, the bet is clear: young, physical, ready. The Leuven friendly was his first outing in red and white. There will be harder tests, but the job is his to lose.
What comes next
Stanic will be announced formally any day now. Then the real work starts. Mendilibar has to integrate two new creative attackers, Stanic and Jota Silva, into a team that already expects to win the league. The friendly schedule is the laboratory. Every lineup from here until the competitive matches is a clue about who the manager trusts and how he sees the front line functioning. The Stanic signing raises the ceiling. Now the coaching has to match it.
