Sotiris Ninis

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Personal information
Sotiris Ninis

Date of birth	April 3, 1990 (age 16)
Place of birth	Himara, Albania
Height	1.73m
Playing position	Right Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Panathinaikos FC
Youth clubs
?-2003 2003-12/2006	Apollon Smyrnis [1] Panathinaikos FC
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
12/2006-current	Panathinaikos FC	8 (2)
National team²
2007-current	Greece U21	1 (0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of March 26, 2007. ² National team caps and goals correct as of March 26, 2007. * Appearances (Goals)

Sotiris Ninis (Greek: Σωτήρης Νίνης) is a young Greek [2][3][4] footballer from the Greek minority of Southern Albania currently playing for Panathinaikos FC in Greece.[5][6].

1 Playing Career
2 Other Records
3 Trivia
4 Links

[edit] Playing Career

Ninis began his career in 2004 as a youngster in Panathinaikos FC football academies, joining from feeder club Apollon Smyrnis. During these 2 years, he became an integral part of Panathinaikos FC Youth Squad and his coaches believe him to be the next promising talent of Greek football. As a result, on December 22 the club directors offered him a 5 year contract and just 2 weeks after that day, in January 7 2007, Panathinaikos coach Victor Muñoz selected him in the main squad for the match against Aigaleo FC in Olympic Stadium (1-0 for Panathinaikos). His outstanding performance earned him the title of the Superleague Matchday MVP and he immediately became the hottest name in every Greek football quarter. He became the second youngest player ever to wear the club's shirt in a league match, at the age of sixteen (the first was Kostas Antoniou -15 years old- in 1978). In February 2006, he officially rejected a call to play for the Albanian Under-21 national team.In 18th of February 2007 Ninis was the leader of Panathinaiko's team which defeated AEK 4-1.Ninis scored an amazing goal and assisted two others.

[edit] Other Records

On January 27, 2007 Ninis became the youngest Greek player to score in the history of the Professional Greek League at the age of 16 years, 8 months and 17 days.

On February 15, 2007 Ninis became the youngest player to participate with a Greek football team in a European cup match, against RC Lens in France.

[edit] Trivia

On March 2nd 2006 the Tunnel boring machine for the expansion of the Athens Metro was named "Sotiris Ninis" by the greek minister Georgios Souflias.