ATHENS
History
The setting for the Champions League Final, on May 23, could not be better. Athens’ Olympic stadium had a complete overhaul for the 2004 Games under renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and now has a capacity of over 70,000. It currently hosts most league home games of Panathinaikos and AEK, two of Greece’s big three clubs.
The other one, Olympiakos, the most successful club in the country in recent years, are based at the Yorgos Karaiskakis stadium in the nearby port of Piraeus. That ground was also revamped for 2004.
Olympiakos, known as Gavri (little fish), have just won the league title for the 10th time in 11 seasons. But while the club, backed by mobile-phone millionaire Sokratis Kokkalis and with ex-player Takis Lemonis as coach, have domestic dominance, they have failed to make much of an impact in European competition.
Olympiakos, formed in 1925, are also known as Thrylos (legend) after their famous original five-man forward line, the Andrianopoulos brothers. After helping the team lift four of the first six Greek titles, the quintet persuaded the Greek Olympic Committee to convert an old velodrome used for the first modern Olympics of 1896 into an athletics and football ground. In 2004, the last surviving brother, 94-year-old Leonidas, lit the flame for the Olympic torch relay at Piraeus.
Traditionally, the club draw their support from the blue-collar port workers – in contrast to Panathinaikos, whose permanent base is in the wealthy area of Ambelokipi, in the north-west of Athens.
Shamrock badge
Panathinaikos, Greece’s oldest club, having been founded in 1908, wear green and bear a shamrock badge but there is no connection with Ireland. The emblem was adopted on the suggestion of a Greek athlete. Pana have used the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium, close to Ambelokipi station, since its construction in 1922 but because it is only modest they have been playing nearly all home games at the Olympic stadium for more than 20 years.
A new ground has been discussed for years but despite the club’s white-collar image, funds have not been forthcoming.
Games between Panathinaikos and Olympiakos are the biggest in Greek sport. Recently all team sports in the country were suspended for a fortnight after supporters from these rival clubs clashed in the distant Athenian suburb of Peania in the run-up to a women’s volleyball fixture. There was one fatality. In 1995, clashes after a basketball game between the clubs also led to the death of a fan.
Greek sport has been blighted by fan violence for years. There is no ticket allocation for the visiting club for derby matches. This latest incident has prompted the authorities to start installing CCTV cameras at grounds.
AEK’s traditional base is in Nea Filadelfia, in northern Athens, close to that of Panathinaikos. Their Nikos Goumas stadium was hit by an earthquake in 1996 and demolished in 2003. The club are planning a modern, multi-sports arena in the same locality.
AEK were formed in 1924 by Greek refugees fleeing Constantinople after Turkish independence – hence the club’s Byzantine double-headed eagle emblem. AEK have a particularly bitter rivalry with Olympiakos because the Piraeus club poached their mercurial coach, Dusan Bajevic, in 1996 to begin their run of domestic title success. Bajevic returned to oversee AEK’s Champions League campaign of 2002. Ambitious young president Demis Nikolaidis, the former international and an AEK fan from boyhood, took control in 2004, assuming their massive debt. Season ticket sales for games at the Olympic stadium are healthy and the yellow-and-blacks are Champions League regulars.
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