Olympiacos, Tottenham’s first opponent in the 2019-2020 Champions League, is the most widely supported football club in Greece and in the Greek communities all over the world. The club’s name was inspired from the ancient Olympic games and the laurel- crowened  Olympic athlete symbolize the Olympic ideals of ancient Greece.

The greek club was founded (10/03/1925) at first not for football but for a promotion of sportsmanship and fanship among the youth according to egalitarian principles, by stressing a healthy, ethical and social basis as its foundation. Members of “Piraicos Podosfairikos Omilos‘ and Piraeus Fans Club“decided to dissolve the two clubs in order to establish a new unified one; Notis Kamperos a senior officer of the Greek Navy proposed the name”Olympiacos” and added the Olympics relationship.

Olympiacos home ground is the Karaiskakis Stadium, a 32.115 capacity place and is situated at Neo Faliro  in Piraeus. It was built in 1895 as Neo Faliro Velodrome to host the cycling events for the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. Olympiacos started using it since its foundation in 1925.

Since then, the club has won trophies galore: 44 Super League (championships),  27 Greek Cups, 4 Greek Supercups and 3 Greater Greece Cups, but in European competitions there’s only one Balkans Cup to cheer about. Still they were able to win twice against Champions League runners, vs @bayer04 in 2002(6-2) and vs @atletienglish in 2014(3-2).

Tottenham and Olympiacos, have already met twice : a friendly at the old stadium of White Hart Lane (3-0) on  9/08/2009, goals scored by Roman Pavlyuchenko, Vedran Corluka and Jermaine Defoe and a second round of the UEFA Cup, a 4-0 home win( 25/10/1972) but a short defeat at the Karaiskaki Stadium 1-0 (8/11/72)

Socratis, the Arsenal player, gave some advice to his countrymen: “Tottenham don’t care much about possesion, for they can change very quickly from defending to attacking, he said. Some times in the game Spurs can give some  free space, but it doesn’t last, when it arrives, Olympiacos must react quickly“.

Hugo Lloris, Spurs’  French captain talked about “a difficult game’ to start  this  new  Champions League campaign and about his former national team mate Mathieu Valbuena, now an Olympiacos player : “he brings experience to the team he said, but also he has been  a good signing to every team in which he had played.”

While the Greeks’ Head coach Pedro Martins is expecting not only a good game but a win from his players(“for nothing else would be satisfying“) his colleague, Tottenham’s Argentine Mauricio Pochettino is hoping that this  new  CL season will help to erase Madrid’s hearbreak…”it’s now the time to rebuilt, enjoy that new adventure”  he said and despite having to start away in one of the most “hot” and “wildest” atmospheric stadiums in Europe, this is the moment, this is the time, and  that counts for both teams!

Categories: Champions League, Preview

Tags: Champions League 2019-20, Olympiacos vs Tottenham