Super League giants Olympiakos Piraeus have terminated manager Ewald Lienen in light of his failure to guide the club past their Europa League qualifier.
Olympiakos was left stunned as they were bundled out of the competition after losing to Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv, whom they were expected to defeat in an easy game to advance to the next round. The signs appeared to be there from the first leg when they were trailing their opponents for much of the game until two late goals seemed to have turned the tie around. However they lost 1-0 in Israel on Thursday to go out on the away goals rule.
Ewald Lienen had only been directing the team for two months after taking over from his previous position as a coach with 1860 Munich.
The German received his marching orders from the Greek club yesterday after a board meeting held in the afternoon. The consensus was that Lienen had to go in light of the growing crisis of confidence within the squad and a clear inability to deliver the desired results.
This increases an already growing concern to fans of the Athens team with Lienen’s dismissal. This is now the fifth manager over the past year. The club have not been able to find an adequate replacement for Ernesto Valverde who left in June last year and despite heavy investment in playing personnel, the results have been less than perfect enough for the board.
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