Mono Burgos's good moment at Aris in Greece: he won the classic and is one step away from qualifying for the cups

Germán Adrián Ramón Burgos's time in Greek football is booming strongly on European territory: his Aris from Thessaloniki won the classic and is on his way to reach the Europa Conference League. With so much from Cheick Doukouré, the team led by Mono stepped strong at home against PAOK: he beat him 1-0 and held his distance with Panathinaikos, who triumphed in a brave stop against the already-almost champion Olympiacos.

The former goalkeeper from River Plate, Atlético de Madrid and the Argentine national team, among others, reached the Greek team at the end of February and turned a situation that seemed difficult. He won five wins, two draws and suffered only one defeat to put the team in the final hexagonal, which now has him as one of the main animators.

While Olympiacos entered this final phase as almost champion, which faces the six best teams of the tournament — the points earned throughout the tournament remain — Aris de Burgos climbed to third place at this time with 53 points behind Olympiacos (70) and PAOK (59), rival who surpassed the latter weekend to hold on to the third place of the table.

Beyond the fact that mathematically the title is almost defined with five rounds left until the end of the tournament, this playoffs among the top six allows one ticket to the first round of the Champions League to be distributed for the champion and two passes to the Europa Conference League for the next two of the count. Currently, Aris would be entering that international competition.

Although today PAOK and Aris would be taking over that benefit, the emblematic Panathinaikos does not lose track of them since after beating the almost champion on this date he marches with 51 units two of the representative commanded by the 53-year-old Argentine coach. It should be noted that the Monkey's only defeat so far was precisely against Olympiacos, a team that barely lost 2 matches in the 30 appearances they have accumulated so far in the Greek Super League.

After accompanying Diego Cholo Simeone for almost a successful decade at Atletico Madrid, Burgos launched as a coach with a first experience at Newell's in Rosario, where he stayed for 15 games with four wins, six draws and five losses. “We, when we arrived at Newell's, we received the team that had 1 point in five games. We were six undefeated games. If you go to everything that Newell's had done in the past, I haven't had six undefeated matches in a while. We cut that negative streak and gave the team a boost. Both the team and the minor divisions. We got ten players with debut and goals, for example. There are several positive things. But we cut those negative energies from the moment we arrived,” he said months ago in an interview with Infobae about that first step as a solo DT.

“I have set up an office in my house with two assistants who are constantly advancing situations and looking for data or things for when a team calls us: in two days you have to know everything. In two days you have to know who are going to help you in the inferior, how many players have in the national teams, how many have made their first debut, how many have had minutes in the first, you start from the bottom up”, he explained in that note while waiting for a tempting offer to resume his journey. Finally, he accepted the proposal of Aris, who when he took office had suffered the removal of 6 points by decision of the Greek federation and was marching in the eighth position in the table.

Its staff includes Argentineans Daniel Mancini (former Newell's), Mateo García (former Institute) and Facundo Bertoglio (born from Colón de Santa Fe), as well as Argentinian naturalized Paraguayan Juan Manuel Iturbe, who had passed through Quilmes and River Plate in Argentina. Mancini and Iturbe were on the move in the classic against PAOK, while Garcia entered in the second half and Bertoglio ran out of minutes on the substitute bench.

KEEP READING: