add site
services
publishers
database
health videos
toolbar
stats
live show
health store
more stuff
JOIN/LOGIN
| advertise add site services publishers database health videos
| | about toolbar stats live show health store more stuff JOIN/LOGIN |
Summit FC46 Freezer, Summit FC-46 Chest Freezer, FC46 Summit Freezer blockscientific.com | Systems, Inc. - APG-3045-FC... biocompression.com | Fire Centurion FC-01R Fire warning for deaf people for hotel, care home... easylinkuk.co.uk | FC-AD-1 - Incontinence Adaptor - BFX FCAD1 bio-medical.com |
For the parent multisport club, see Olympiacos CFP.
Olympiacos F.C. (Greek: ΠΑΕ Ολυμπιακός), also known simply as Olympiacos, Olympiacos Piraeus or with its full name Olympiacos C.F.P. (Greek: Oλυμπιακός Σύνδεσμος Φιλάθλων Πειραιώς, transliterated "Olympiacos Syndesmos Filathlon Pireos"), Olympiacos Club of Fans of Piraeus, is a Greek association football club, part of Olympiacos CFP, based in Piraeus, Athens. Olympiacos is considered one of the big three football clubs in Greece and it is one of four teams that have never been relegated from the first division. Olympiacos is the most successful club in Greek football history, having won thirty-seven League titles, twenty-four Greek Cups and three Greek Super Cups, more titles than any other Greek team; in European competitions, they have reached the quarter-finals twice, in the 1998–99 UEFA Champions League and the 1992–93 European Cup Winners' Cup. Olympiacos is also one of the founding members of the European Club Association. The club's stadium is the newly rebuilt Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus. Olympiacos is the most popular Greek club with around two and a half million fans in Greece and was placed ninth on the list with the most paid up members in the world in 2006, having 83,000 registered members as of April 2006. They share a great and long-standing rivalry with Panathinaikos, with whom they contest in the Derby of the eternal enemies.
[edit] History[edit] Early years and domestic successOlympiacos was founded on March 10, 1925, in the port of Piraeus, when the members of "Piraikos Podosfairikos Omilos FC" (Sport and Football Club of Piraeus) and the "Piraeus Fans Club FC" decided, during a historical assembly, to dissolve the two clubs in order to establish a new unified one, with an emblem depicting the profile of an Olympic winner. Notis Kamberos announced the name Olympiacos and Michalis Manouskos completed it to its full name, Olympiacos Syndesmos Filathlon Pireos. The Andrianopoulos brothers, however, were those who significantly raised the reputation of the club and added glory to it. Members of a prosperous family, they made the name of Olympiacos known over Greece. Jimmy, Dinos, Giorgos and Vassilis were the first to play. Leonidas made his appearance later on and played for a short time. The club's offensive line, made up of the five brothers, soon became legendary. Olympiacos immediately caught the attention of locals, back then their fanbase consisted mainly of the working class, with the team filling the Neo Phaliron Velodrome, later to be the Karaiskakis Stadium, and becoming Piraeus' champions for the seasons 1925, 1926, 1927.[1] In 1926, the Hellenic Football Federation was founded and organized the Panhellenic Championship in the 1927-1928 season, the first national championship, where the regional champions from EPSA league (Athens), EPSP league (Piraeus) and EPSM league (Thessaloniki) compete for the national title through play-offs, with Aris becoming the first champion. Up to 1958-59 the Panhellenic Championship was organized this way however the second season (1928-29) Olympiacos came to a dispute with the Hellenic Football Federation and did not participate in the championship with Panathinaikos and AEK Athens deciding to follow Olympiacos and doing the same. During that season they played friendly games with each other and together formed a group called P.O.K.. The fourth Panhellenic Championship took place in 1930-31 and found Olympiacos winning the Greek national league title for the first time in the history of the club. It was going to be a very successful era. By 1940, Olympiacos had already won six championships in eleven seasons and by 1960 they had won fifteen championships in twenty-three seasons, as well as nine Greek Cups, making it for six doubles. The legendary Olympiacos team of the 1950s, with key performers such as Andreas Mouratis, Ilias Rossidis, Thanassis Bebis, Elias Yfantis, Kostas Polychroniou, Giorgos Darivas and Savas Theodoridis, won the title six consecutive times, from 1954 to 1959, combining it with the cup in 1957, 1958 and 1959 to celebrate the only third double in a row to have ever been won in Greek football history. Hence, Olympiacos is also known as Thrylos, meaning 'legend', after this classic side of the 1950s which won a hatful of titles. It is worth mentioning that Olympiacos for several seasons was not allowed to make use of the Karaiskakis Stadium and, with permission from Panathinaikos, found a temporary home in Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium, the ground of the eternal enemy. [edit] Sporadic success and stone yearsThe first championship as a Top National League, called Alpha Ethniki, was held for the first time in the 1959-60 season however the 60s and the early 70s were not as fruitful for Olympiacos, having won only two championships and six cups. Another glorious chapter began in 1972, after Nikos Goulandris became president. He appointed Lakis Petropoulos as coach and signed star players Giorgos Delikaris, Yves Triantafyllos, Julio Losada, Milton Viera and Dimitris Persidis. Under Goulandris presidency, Olympiacos won the title three times in a row from 1973 to 1975, combining it with the cup in 1973 and 1975. The highlight for that side was the 1973-74 season, when Olympiacos won the league with record points (59) and goals (102). Following Goulandris resignation from the presidency in 1975, the team went through a relative dry period in the second half of the 1970s. However in the early 80s,when the championship became professional, Olympiacos emerged again as the dominant power in the Greek football winning the title four times in a row (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983). Key players during this period included forward Nikos Anastopoulos, midfielder Tasos Mitropoulos and goalkeeper Nikos Sarganis. Alketas Panagoulias, who had also been manager of the Greek national football team and the United States national soccer team, coached the team between 1981 and 1983 and again in the 1986-87 season, earning the championship title in 1982, 1983 and 1987. Olympiacos experienced its darkest days from the late-1980s until the mid-90s. In the mid-80s Olympiacos came into the hands of Greek businessman George Koskotas. Soon Koskotas was accused of and convicted for embezzlement, leaving Olympiacos deep in debt. On the pitch, the team without a serious management went nine seasons without a league title, 1988 to 1996. This period was known as Olympiacos' stone years. It is worth mentioning that 1987-88 was the worst season ever for Olympiacos, as the club finished 8th in the league, playing to avoid the relegation in most of the season. [edit] Absolute dominationHence Olympiacos' era of domination began, with success attracting players of international magnitude like Zlatko Zahovič, Giovanni, and World Champions Rivaldo and Christian Karembeu. Olympiacos won seven consecutive championships, beating their own past record of six, with their best season being 1998-99, when they celebrated the Double and their qualification to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League, their best ever European campaign. Following coaches had big shoes to fill and Kokkalis was not prepared to give them time to do it; Olympiacos employed eleven coaches in just four years. The most known are Ioannis Matzourakis, Takis Lemonis, Trond Sollied, Oleg Protasov, Siniša Gogić and Nikos Alefantos. Despite the constant management changes, Olympiacos kept on winning championships, except for the season 2003–04, when they finished second, after switching three coaches in a year, losing the championship for the first time after seven years of absolute dominance. In 2004, Olympiacos appointed again Dušan Bajević and transferred 1999 World Footballer of the Year and reigning World Champion Brazilian Rivaldo. The end of the season found Olympiacos with both domestic trophies but without their manager Bajević, as he resigned. Therefore Olympiacos appointed Trond Sollied. They also made a great hit on the market by signing arch-rival Panathinaikos' striker Michalis Konstantinou. During the season 2005–06, Olympiacos achieved to win all the four derbies against their major rivals, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens, something only achieved once more, during the season 1972–73. The combined goal total in these four matches was 11-3 in favour of Olympiacos. They also beat their second biggest rival AEK Athens 3-0 in the Greek Cup Final to clinch their second straight double and managed to win 16 consecutive matches in the championship, thus breaking their own record. After the previous record-breaking season, in the 2006 summer transfers, Socrates Kokkalis put full faith in Trond Sollied and signed seven, though not expensive, players according to his recommendations, in hoping that the club will achieve the double for the third straight time for only the second time in Greek footballing history. However, Sollied did not live up to the club's expectations on the UEFA Champions League 2006–07 and was replaced by Takis Lemonis at the end of 2006. The new manager of the team, though a previous manager of Olympiacos, he transferred to the team young star Vasilis Torosidis, who proved to be a faithful defender. Though Lemonis won the third consecutive championship for Olympiacos, he didn't manage to win the Greek Cup, after a surprising elimination from PAS Giannina. Nevertheless, there was no doubt that Lemonis would remain as a coach. In the summer of 2007, Olympiacos made very expensive transfers like Darko Kovačević and Luciano Galletti and realized the most lucrative transfer in Greek football history, by selling striker-midfielder Nery Castillo to Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk for the record sum of 20 million Euro (27.5 million US Dollars). Because of a clause in Castillo's contract, Olympiacos received 15 million Euro and the remaining 5 million Euro were given directly to the player. Furthermore, a controversy started between the team and player Rivaldo, as Olympiacos did not wish to renew the player's contract, despite the fact that Rivaldo had featured heavily in the club's successful campaigns, both in Greece and abroad. Former player Ilija Ivic was selected for the role of the team's football manager. The team didn't start well in the Greek championship, but it achieved a stunning performance in the Champions League, managing to qualify to the next round after nine years of unsuccessful European campaigns. However, the team's less than satisfactory performance in the league, coupled with the defeat from Chelsea in the Champions League, in Stamford Bridge Stadium, prompted club manager Socrates Kokkalis to sack coach Takis Lemonis. The team's assistant manager, Jose Segura, coached the team for the remainder of the season. Although Olympiacos managed to win both the Greek Cup and Championship, Segura returned to his previous position. In the summer of 2008, Olympiacos made some prominent transfers with the signing of Diogo Luis Santo, Avraam Papadopoulos and Dudu Cearense, along with the appointment of Ernesto Valverde from RCD Espanyol as the new coach. His contract was worth approximately €6,000,000, for three years.[2] The 2008-09 season started badly for Olympiacos, with the team performing below its potential and losing their first few official matches, against Anorthosis Famagusta for the Champions League third qualifying round, and was eliminated from the tournament, which resulted to a seat in the UEFA Cup first round, where Olympiacos beat Nordsjælland to qualify to the group stage. The team also started good in the Super League Greece 2008–09, winning every match at home, but facing difficulties away. After an impressive UEFA Cup run at home, the team managed to get through to the round of 32, facing French side Saint-Étienne. Olympiacos is by far the most successful club in Greek football history. Indeed they have more championships (37) to their name than arch-rivals Panathinaikos (19) and AEK Athens (11) put together, while the Reds have alone more titles (37) than all the other crowned teams together (36). Olympiacos also holds the Cup and Super Cup winning-record with 24 and 4 wins respectively, while the Balkans Cup that was won in 1963 was an important achievement in that era. [edit] Crest and colours When, in 1925, the merger of the two clubs of Piraeus, Athlitikos Podosfairikos Syllogos Pireos and Omilos Filathlon Pireos, gave birth to the new football club, the latter was unanimously baptized Olympiacos Club of Fans of Piraeus, a name inspired from the Ancient Olympic Games, the morality, the vying and the splendor that they represented in ancient Greece. Consequently, the club adopted the laureate teen as their emblem, which symbolizes the Olympic Games winner, a crest that underwent minor changes through the ages. Red and white were chosen as the colours of the crest; red for the passion and white for the virtue. The typical kit of the team is that of a shirt with red and white vertical stripes, and red or white shorts and socks. The shirt has taken different forms during the history of the club, for example with thin or wider stripes. The second most common kit is the all-red one and next the all-white one. Olympiacos has used several other colours during its history as an away or third kit, with the most notable of them being the monotint black or silver one. The most common kits of Olympiacos during their history are these below (the year of each one is indicant):
[edit] StadiumMain article: Karaiskakis Stadium The Karaiskakis Stadium (Greek: Γήπεδο Γεώργιος Καραϊσκάκης), situated at the Faliro area of Piraeus, Greece, is the traditional and current home ground of Olympiacos. Named after Georgios Karaiskakis, national hero of the Greek War of Independence, it hosts Olympiacos home matches for the most of the club's history. It was built in 1895 as a velodrome, to host the cycling events for the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. Its official name was Neo Phaliron Velodrome (Greek: Ποδηλατοδρόμιο Νέου Φαλήρου) and the pitch was covered with curm. Olympiacos started using it since its foundation in 1925. In 1964, the stadium was renovated, taking its current name and the shape it had until 2003, with an athletics track around the pitch. Being one of the most important sport venues in Greece, it hosted the 1969 European Athletics Championships and the 1971 European Cup Winners' Cup Final between Chelsea and Real Madrid. The history of the Karaiskakis Stadium and Olympiacos was marked by the worst tragedy that ever hit Greek sports, known as the Karaiskakis Stadium disaster. In February 8, 1981, Olympiacos hosted AEK Athens for a League match, which ended 6–0, in an unprecedented triumph for the host team of Piraeus. During the last minutes of the game, thousands of Olympiacos fans at the gate 7 rushed to the exit, to get to the stadium's main entrance and celebrate with the players, but the doors were almost closed and the turnstiles still in place, making the exit almost impossible. As people continued to come down from the stands, unable to see what happened, the stairs of gate 7 became a death trap; people were poached, tens of fans were seriously injured and twenty-one young people died, most of them by suffocation.[3] Olympiacos left the Karaiskakis Stadium temporarily, to play home games at the newly built Athens Olympic Stadium, in 1984. After a five-year use of the biggest stadium in Greece, the team returned to their traditional home, where they played until 1997. It was then that Olympiacos got back to the Athens Olympic Stadium, where they stayed for another period of five years. In 2002, the Olympic Stadium was closed for renovation works due to the 2004 Summer Olympics and Olympiacos moved to the Georgios Kamaras Stadium in Rizoupoli, home of Apollon Smyrnis, for the following two seasons. The Karaiskakis Stadium had fallen in disrepair and its use was passed to Olympiacos in April 2003; the club took the responsibility to build a new football-only ground in its place, to be used for the football tournament of the 2004 Olympics. In return, Olympiacos got exclusive use of the stadium until 2052, covering all maintenance costs and also paying 15% of revenue to the State. The old stadium was demolished in the spring of 2003 and the whole project was constructed in the record period of 14 months. It was completed in June 30, 2004 at a total cost of €60 million.[4] Nowadays, the Karaiskakis Stadium is one of the most modern football grounds in Europe, also hosting the museum of Olympiacos and several facilities around. [edit] SupportersFurther information: Popularity of Greek teams  Olympiacos is the most popular of the Greek clubs according to polls that have been conducted in Greece. Olympiacos' traditional fanbase comes from the city of Piraeus, where the club is based, as well as a good part of the rest of the Athens area. The club gained increased popularity during the 1950s by winning consecutive titles and setting several records; thus, their fanbase was enlarged throughout Greece and they became the most well-supported football club in the country. Traditionally, Olympiacos was popular in the working class but through the ages the club has attracted fans from all the social classes and their fanbase has changed significantly. Several newspapers and magazines have published polls in recent years, which give Olympiacos as the most popular club in Greece with a percentage varying between 29–37% among the fans and 20.3–29.3% in total population, which corresponds to around two and a half millions of supporters in Greece. The club is overwhermingly popular in Piraeus, where almost half of its population supports Olympiacos,[5] while their percentage in the whole of Athens verges on 45.1% among the fans, a record for a team in the capital.[6] The Reds are also the most popular club in the working class with a percentage of 37% and in all age groups,[5] as well as among both male and female fans;[7] in terms of politics, the vast majority of their fans comes from the centre and centre-right of the political spectrum.[5] Apart from Athens, Olympiacos is the most popular club in Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, the Aegean and the Ionian Islands.[8] Additionally, the club from Piraeus has the highest average all-time attendance in Greek football, having topped the attendance tables in most of the seasons in Super League Greece history.[9] In 2006, Olympiacos was placed in the top ten of the clubs with the most paid up members in the world, holding the ninth place just ahead of Real Madrid.[10] As of April 2006, the registered members of the club were approximately 83,000.[11] Olympiacos and Red Star Belgrade fans have developed a deep friendship, calling themselves the Orthodox Brothers. Usually, Olympiacos supporters from several fan-clubs attend Red Star's matches, especially against their old rival Partizan, and vice-versa. More recently, the Orthodox Brothers have started to include fans of Spartak Moscow in their club. [edit] Rivalries Traditionally, Olympiacos' main rival is Panathinaikos, in the so-called derby of the eternal enemies, the most classic rivalry not only in the Athens area, but in Greek football and sports in general, and one of the most well-known rivalries around the world.[12] Each game between the two most successful and most popular Greek football clubs splits the Athens area and the whole of Greece in two, as they have been in direct competition continuously throughout their history; however, this derby is much more than just a football derby for their fans, it is a social, cultural and regional rivalry. On the one side Olympiacos is seen as the classic representative of the working class of the port city of Piraeus, while Panathinaikos is considered the club of the Athenian higher-class society, although this kind of distinction has been weakened and the two clubs have similar fanbases. Many times some violent incidents between the fans of the two sides have occurred, like the death of Mihalis Filopoulos, a Panathinaikos fan, in a clash of hooligans supporting the two clubs in 2007, for a women's volleyball match and not for a football game though.[13] The next major rival of Olympiacos is the third giant of the Greek football, AEK Athens, to which they share an intense animosity due to their strong on-pitch rivalry and their coexistence within the Greek capital, whereas it got worse when Dušan Bajević left AEK Athens to coach Olympiacos in 1996. As a result, the most successful manager in AEK Athens history has been seen as a traitor since then.[14] The rivalry between Olympiacos and PAOK, although PAOK was rarely a primary contestant of Olympiacos, is a long-standing and the fiercest intercity rivalry in Greece. It dates back to the 1960s, when Olympiacos negotiated to acquire the player-symbol of PAOK, Giorgos Koudas, and is also based on the rivalry between Athens and Thessaloniki, the two major cities of the country. A classic rival of Olympiacos used to be Ethnikos Piraeus, the second most successful club of Piraeus, but the rivalry has languished now as Ethnikos Piraeus has not been contesting in the top tier of Greek football in recent years. [edit] Statistics[edit] European performanceMain article: Olympiacos F.C. in Europe  Olympiacos has a long presence in UEFA competitions. They made debut in September 13, 1959, in a game against Milan at the Karaiskakis Stadium for the European Cup 1959–60, being the first Greek team to compete in European competition. However, they were to play for a first time against Beşiktaş for the preliminary round of the European Cup 1958–59, but the Greek side finally withdrew. Olympiacos was also the first team from Greece to advance to the next round of any European competition, eliminating Zagłębie Sosnowiec for the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1963–64. Their best European campaigns came when they reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League 1998–99, where they were eliminated by Juventus, and the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup 1992–93, before losing to Atlético Madrid.[15] One of the most important points that have marked Olympiacos history at European level is their tendency to be extremely strong at home games. This has been proved by some long-standing unbeaten sequences, especially in the UEFA Champions League, where Manchester United was the first team to beat Olympiacos at home for the tournament with its new format, in the latter's fifth consecutive participation in the top club's European competition. In addition, Olympiacos have succeeded some impressive wins at home, like the stunning 6-2 victory over the then Champions League runners-up Bayer Leverkusen in the UEFA Champions League 2002–03, and the achievement of the three consecutive large wins in the UEFA Cup 2008–09, 5-0 over Nordsjælland, 5-1 against Benfica and 4-0 versus Hertha Berlin. Best campaigns
Notes [edit] National league records
[edit] HonoursMain article: Olympiacos F.C. honours Olympiacos have won 64 official major titles domestically, which make them the most successful Greek football club, and one Balkans Cup, a non-primary tournament.[16]
[edit] Players[edit] Current rosterFor details on Olympiacos transfers and current squad, see List of Greek football transfers summer 2009 and Olympiacos F.C. season 2009–10. As of 11 September 2009[17]
[edit] Former playersFor details on former players, see List of Olympiacos F.C. players. [edit] Foreign players
[edit] International players
[edit] Club officials[edit] Board of Directors
Last updated: June 2009 [edit] Technical and medical staff
[edit] Managerial historyMain article: List of Olympiacos F.C. managers
[edit] References
[edit] External links
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ↑ top of page ↑ | about thumbshots |
