Last Sunday at the Coburg Town Hall the Glenroy Lions held their official launch event for the upcoming season during which they announced that they would be working with a number of scouts from different clubs all around the world, including those of Greek club Olympiacos. To recognise this effort, former players of the Piraeus team Panagiotis Kelesidis, Christos Kaltsas and Sinisa Gogic came all the way to Greece to show their support. Neos Kosmos had the chance to speak to the latter, who for those that don’t know was a great striker during the late 90’s era, scoring some of the most crucial goals in the club’s history in the European competitions.
Would you like to make a comment about the effort that is being done by Mr Frank Michalopoulos and his associates?
I think it’s a very good effort because I definitely support anything that has to do with football in the youth level. I believe they’re on the right path and I hope they can all stick together and create a good team because as I’ve heard there are players from different cultures at the club which is something very positive. Football is a universal language that never bothers to ask where someone hails from and both myself, Panagiotis (Kelesidis) and Christos (Kaltsas) feel very fortunate to be able to support this effort.
Do you know anything in specific regarding this training program?
All I know is that Olympiacos themselves have officially recognised it, since they want to increase their presence all over the globe. The US, Canada, everywhere. The club is trying to expand (its network) to all over the world. And that makes total sense since it is now considered to be a great club just as the other big teams that play in Europe. And they all try to maintain a network in the entire world. They search for talent all over the place and we can see that the way football is progressing today, with clubs spending over 100-200 million euros for a single player, that searching for a young talented player that hasn’t raised his value yet is definitely worth taking all the necessary actions.
Some of your first impressions from Melbourne? What do you think of the city? It’s your first time here!
As a coach, I’ve been all over the place. China, Hong Kong, you name it. I really like it here! I’ve read some great things as well. I also follow the local football championship (A-League), I saw some teams that came to play in China for the (Asian) Champions League… It’s a truly wonderful country, I was expecting to go swimming because they told me that it was summer down here but unfortunately it’s still rather cold. In general I can see that the way of life follows a much slower pace when compared to Greece or the rest of Europe.
Let’s change the topic and discuss your own career. You were a huge player, a member of the “golden era” of Olympiacos and Greek football in general. Which would you say was the highlight of your career? A lot of people would say that goal against Juventus in the Champions League quarter-final…
Yes, that was definitely a goal that we needed. But we didn’t have luck on our side that night and God didn’t help us since we were dealing with a lot of bad weather. We had already shown from our previous games what we were all about, since we played some really great football, but just as everyone here tells me that they’re a family among themselves, in that same fashion that team was a family. That Olympiacos team was like one. We were all very close between us, it didn’t matter who played and who didn’t. And we played wonderful, attacking football because at the Olympic Stadium, with 60-70,000 on our side, all we were expected was for the game to start to get out there and squash the opposition. And we’re not talking about small teams here, we played against Croatia (now Dynamo) Zagreb, we played Porto, Ajax, Juventus of Zidane… We lived some great times, sadly for five minutes we didn’t have the chance to go to that semi-final and play Manchester United. I believe with the dynamic the team had that season, we could’ve beat any opponent.
I hear a lot of your former teammates say that in interviews that I read that despite the great form Manchester United was in during that season (they went on to win the treble), you felt like you could beat them!
I’m sure we could’ve. We had so much faith in that team. Believe me, all we expected was for the game to start.
Regarding the best single came in your career, which would you say that was? I personally remember that 3-3 against Real Madrid. That was a thrilling encounter!
Oh, yes! That was Giovanni’s debut, we also had (Zlatko) Zahovic with us that season. I came in from the bench and “served” the third goal to Giovanni. That game is also unforgettable for (Iker) Casillas, who also made his debut. We’re talking about a huge team with a lot of world class players. But all of those Champions League nights are truly memorable.
We could say that your example is the perfect argument to those who claim that a footballer doesn’t really have much to offer once he enters his 30’s. You came to the team at a quite advanced age, yet your contribution was indispensable.
And don’t forget that I came from the Cypriot league that Greeks tend to underestimate. In October of the previous year I had celebrated my 33 years of age, then I went to Olympiacos the next January on the last day of the transfer period. But I never felt any stress or pressure because I had learned to struggle and have faith in myself from a young age. Of course during the first period I was unlucky since I had only scored three goals in six months, but I also had 11-12 assists. But not many people bothered to look at that, when you’re a striker in Greece all that matters is how many goals you score. I think I succeeded because I was a very different type of forward. I took advantage of free spaces, I always asked for the ball, I was strong, I was good with the head… I believe that from my side I gave a lot of things so that Olympiacos could get the results they needed, yet I definitely had a lot of support from my team mates and the club in order to become what I am today. And as Panagiotis said a little earlier, Olympiacos offers you something irreplaceable, to be able to travel all over the world and feel the love of the Greek people. That is something truly priceless.
What’s your opinion of the current Olympiacos squad?
It’s a team that always plays in the same rhythm, with the same players and that gives them a small advantage. In Europe we saw that they made it through a series of difficult qualifiers, while they played very well at home against Bayern and Tottenham. Even in London they could’ve gotten a good result if they had been a bit more cautious. They achieved their goal, they made it to the next round of the Europa League and I think that in the knock-out games they can prove to be a difficult opponent for anyone. In Greece, their only opponent is PAOK, who is very strong this season, and their battle will go till the end of the season.