The history of Olympiacos FC from 1924 until 2009.
Featuring:
Leonidas Andrianopoulos, Giorgos Darivas, Kostas Polychroniou, Kostas Karapatis, Elias Bazinas, Kostas Dafnos, Panos Dafnos, Ilias Yfantis, Nikos Yioutsos, Petros Karavitis, Panagiotis Kelesidis, Nikos Sarganis, Tassos Mitropoulos, Antonis Panoutsos, Antonis Karpetopoulos, Antonis Pyliaros, Yannis Gounaris, Jacek Gmoch, Antonis Georgiadis, Christos Sotirakopoulos, Predrag Djordjevic and Antonis Nicopololidis.
Cinematography:
Claudio Bolivar
Editing:
Kyros Papavassiliou
Sound:
Dimitris Kanellopoulos
Associate producer:
Yannis Vikias
Archivist:
Akis Papadopoulos
Scripts/Narration:
Konstantinos Kamaras
Screenplay/Historical Documentation/Directed by
Elias Giannakakis
This episode is structured on the six major squads in the history of Olympiacos:
The one, built around the five Andrianopoulos brothers, from 1924 until the early 1930s;
the squad of the 50s, a six-time consecutive champion, perhaps the greatest of all times;
the squad of Bukovi, 1965-1967;
the squad of Nikos Goulandris, in the 1970s;
the somewhat underestimated squad of Stavros Daifas, between 1980 and 1983;
and by all means, Kokkalis’s squad, from 1996 till the end of the narrative, in 2009.
Apart from the great moments, the movie features many others, some less known, while others very painful, like the tragedy of Gate 7, in 1981 or Palotai’s scandalous injustice at the match against Anderlecht, in 1974.
We attempt to analyze the ‘red’ DNA and recall the great squads and the big players as well as to find answers for the club’s difficulty to attain European success.
The elderly Leonidas Andrianopoulos gives a moving account of how Olympiacos was founded and shares the reason why red became the club color.
Giorgos Darivas remembers the iconic Andreas Mouratis and the formidable squad of the six consecutive championships.
My friend, the great Elias Bazinas insists that that was the greatest squad of all times and Kostas Karapatis, who was the team’s goalkeeper at the time, recalls some extraordinary stories.
Kostas Polychroniou recalls how he ground down Pelé in the legendary victory over Santos FC, while Nikos Yioutsos, in one of his rare TV appearances, talks about the squad of Bukovi as well as about that of Goulandris.
The impetuous Panagiotis Kelesidis also discusses the squad of the 25 aces and there is a small tribute to Giorgos Delikaris.
Andrianopoulos remembers how his brother Giorgos, presiding over the hearing for the relegation of Panathinaikos (because of the “Flowers Affair”), in a gesture of genuine grandeur, voted in favor of his longterm rivals.
Nikos Sarganis recalls the squad of Daifas; Tassos Mitropoulos the play-offs of 1982 and his best buddy, Nikos Anastopoulos; Christos Sotirakopoulos talks about “the tall and the short” duo of Mitropoulos and Anastopoulos; Yannis Gounaris talks about the 1983 match against Panathinaikos, when he played for 75 minutes with a broken arm, while Jacek Gmoch describes the era of Koskotas.
Finally, Predrag Djordjevic and Antonis Nicopololidis talk about the team in recent years and their domination over Greek football.
It is an intense documentary that features many glorious moments as well as tragedies.
Perhaps the best part of the film takes place at the Karaiskakis stadium, where the other Dafnos brother, the Olympiacos fan, meets on the empty pitch with the magnificent Ilias Yfantis. Together they remember a superb goal the ‘white-red’ striker scored against Milan FC, in 1959. Back then, Yfantis was on the field and Dafnos among the crowd. 50 years later, they relive it for our sake...
