Feb
18
Olympiacos is a popular Greek team from the port city Piraeus. Olympiacos has won 10 of the last 11 Greek championships including last year. In addition, last May Olympiacos added their 22nd Greek Cup in their collection with a win over rival club AEK Athens. The Greek champion automatically advances to Champions League’s group stage. The team has participated in the tournament for more than the last 10 years but has always failed to make it past the group stage. Club president Socrates Kokkalis and Olympiacos’s fans hope that this year could be the exception.
Olympiacos is coached by Norwegian Trond Sollied who has been winning titles in whichever country he has been. He began building the new Olympiacos team soon after arriving in Piraeus in the summer of 2005.
Sollied has been busy building a strong team. Today Olympiacos has such big name players as the Brazilian and 2002 World Cup holder Rivaldo. Just last month they also signed Brazilian defender Julio Cesar, Polish international player Michal Zewlakow, French defender Didier Domi, Ivorian midfielder Marco Ne and Croatian goalkeeper Tomislav Butina. The team also boasts some of the best Greek and Cypriot talent including striker Okkas and Euro champions Kapsis and Nikopolidis.
The team has been very impressive during their pre-season friendly games. They have been able to dominate big clubs such as Blackburn and Real Sociedad with inspiring 4-0 and 5-1 scores respectively.
Olympiacos is looking to strengthen its team even further with the acquisition of Brazilian star Ze Roberto. If the transfer goes through, Sollied will have a solid team starting from between the posts and all the way to the front line. It is possible that this is Olympiacos’s year to go one step further in Champions League past the group stage and why not even as far as the quarter finals and possibly the big final game.
AEK Athens is the 2nd Greek team competing in the Champions League this year. Since AEK finished behind Olympiacos in the Greek championship, they have to earn a spot in the group stage by playing in the 3rd qualifying round. AEK will play Hearts on the 9th and 23rd of August to decide who will advance to the groups stage.
Both Greek teams have an extra incentive to go far in Champions League this year since the final will be held in Athens at the Olympic Stadium. The stadium was recently renovated as the main venue for the 2004 Olympic Games.