Panthrakikos F.C.

Panthrakikos

Full name	Panthrakikos Football Club
Nickname(s)	Crocodiles (Kροκόδειλοι)
Founded	1963
Ground	OPAP-Municipal Komotini Stadium
Ground Capacity	6,198
Owner	Tasos Karaolanis
Chairman	Dimitris Tzelepis
Manager	José Manuel Roca
League	Superleague Greece
2013–14	Superleague Greece, 10th
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours

Panthrakikos Football Club is a football club in Komotini of Thrace in North Eastern Greece founded in 1963. The club competed in Super League Greece during the season 2008–2009 for the first time.

History

The early years, 1963-2001

Panthrakikos F.C. was formed in the town of Komotini in 1963. Athlitiki Enosis Komotini who founded in 1936, and Orpheus Komotini who founded in 1948 were merged with Panthrakikos in 1963 and 1964 respectively.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} The club participated in regional leagues until 1969, when they joined the Beta Ethniki. They stayed in this division until being relegated in 1978, but were promoted back to Beta Ethniki after a single season. They remained here until 1983. Panthrakikos finished 1982–83 12th in Beta Ethniki, but were relegated to Gamma Ethniki due to restructuring of the leagues. In 1983–84 they finished 18th position and were further relegated to Delta Ethniki. The club was promoted again to the Gamma Ethniki, and participated there in 1985–86 and 1986–87. Relegation to Delta Ethniki followed the end of the 1986–87 season. After relegation in 1995-1996, Panthrakikos merged with Orpheus Xylagani and competed as Panthrakikos Xylagani^[7][8] on the founding status of Xylagani in 1996–1998. Competed again as Panthrakikos F.C. in lowest level of local leagues in 1998-2001, without any administration, without any investment. In that period, very few fans were take charge of administration.

New Era, 2001–present

In 2001-2003 Panagiotis Margaritis take charge of administration as chairman and Sakis Skoulis as manager. They were promoted two seasons in a row, reaching the Delta Ethniki in 2003.
In 2004 prompting significant investment into the club from local entrepreneurs Thodoris Savakis, Tasos Karaolanis & Yiannis Kitzidis.^[9] Kostas Vasilakakis, a former player of Panthrakikos, was hired as manager in the summer of 2004. In season 2004–05 Panthrakikos were champions of Delta Ethniki and were again promoted, to the Gamma Ethniki. A third place finish in 2005–06 saw them promoted once more, to the Beta Ethniki.
Three managers were hired in the first half of the season 2006-2007. Zisis Tsekos, Dimitrios Kalaitzidis and Yiannis Gounaris, were fired to replaced by manager Kostas Vasilakakis and lead the club to an 11th place finish. Panthrakikos started the 2007–08 season with a breach of league rules^[10] in their opening game, against Chaidari, and were penalised by a four point reduction. Despite this penalty, Panthrakikos beat Ilisiakos 1–0 in the final game of the season to overtake PAS Giannena, finish third and gain promotion to Super League Greece for the first time.
Emilio Ferrera, was hired as manager in the summer of 2008, lead Panthrakikos to an 11th ^[11] place finish in their first Super League season.

Stadium

The Stadium Municipal Athletic Center (ΔΑΚ – Δημοτικό Αθλητικό Κέντρο) was built in 1923 near Komotini Railway Station. Panthrakikos has played at MAC since 1963.

In 2009 the Stadium was renamed to OPAP-Municipal Komotini Stadium (ΟΠΑΠ-Δημοτικό Γήπεδο Κομοτηνής) after the Greek betting organization OPAP which is the stadium sponsor.

The northern grandstand was built in 1950 (rebuilt 1963–1965) with a capacity of about 2,500 while the southern grandstand was built in 1970 with a capacity of about 1,500. The northern grandstand and southern grandstand were rebuilt in 2008 with a capacity of 1,608 (1,377 seats for gate 1 & 231 seats for gate 7) and 1,090 (gate 5) respectively. In the southern grandstand at the back of, there is a big booth for the Radio and TV journalists (gate 4). Also there is special area for disabled (gate 3). The western grandstand was built in 2008 with a capacity of 2,002 (gate 6 – guests). Finally, the eastern grandstand was built in 2009 with a capacity of 1,498 (gate 2). The total capacity of OPAP-Municipal Komotini Stadium is 6,198 seats plus six booths, with ten persons capacity each of those. Building of southern grandstand is planned instead of existing construction, with a capacity of about 4,500 (total ~9,600).

Panthrakikos Athletic Center

The training center is called "Panthrakikos Athletic Center". It covers a field of 42,000 sq.m. located 4 km east of Komotini at Kikidio village.

First squad. The main building covers 360 sq.m.. Includes the administration office, the press room, first aid station, physiotherapy chamber and locker room. Three full-sized terrains (two with natural turf, one with synthetic turf) are used for the first squad trainings. A half-sized terrain is also used for the goalkeepers training.

Youth Team and football academies. Another building 200 sq.m., which includes locker room, showers and dining room for the Youth team and the football academies. Two half-sized terrains and one full-sized are used by the Youth Teams.

Team Statistics 1963–present

According to combined sources ^{[12] [13] [14] [15]}

The early years, 1963–2001
Season	Level	Rank	W-D-L	Goals	Season	Level	Rank	W-D-L	Goals
1963–64					1982–83	2	12	15–06–17	38–44
1964–65	3	1	6–1–1	14–7	1983–84	3	18	11–13–16	41–46
1965–66	3	5		25–26	1984–85	4	1		96–31
1966–67	3	5		40–22	1985–86	3	15	14–07–17	48–62
1967–68	3				1986–87	3	18	11–06–21	46–72
1968–69	3	1			1987–88	4	11		50–42
1969–70	2	14	07–12–15	26–47	1988–89	5	1
1970–71	2	9	10–12–12	35–34	1989–90	4	4		58–30
1971–72	2	7	17–07–14	45–44	1990–91	4	3	29–07–06	86–26
1972–73	2	9	14–10–14	34–31	1991–92	4	5		50–41
1973–74	2	8	16–12–12	43–39	1992–93	4	2		59–27
1974–75	2	5	16–11–11	43–35	1993–94	4	9		61–38
1975–76	2	10	15–05–18	44–47	1994–95	5	1
1976–77	2	12	14–08–16	39–56	1995–96	4	12		45–47
1977–78	2	17	12–08–18	44–46	1996–97	41	8		46–28
1978–79	3	1			1997–98	41	10		66–43
1979–80	2	11	11–11–16	34–39	1998–99	52	-
1980–81	2	7	17–06–15	42–48	1999–00	6
1981–82	2	8	15–09–14	38–48	2000–01	6

-¹Panthrakikos merged with Orfeas Xylagani and competed as Panthrakikos Xylagani in 1996-1998
-²Panthrakikos withdrew from the league during the period due to financial problems

New Era, 2001–present
Season	Level	Rank	W-D-L	Goals
2001–02	6	1
2002–03	5	1	28–01–01
2003–04	4	5	17–07–06	39–22
2004–05	4	1	24–05–01	70–10
2005–06	3	3	19–09–02	44–21
2006–07	2	11	12–06–16	40–44
2007–08	2	3	17–10–07	44–31
2008–09	1	11	09–06–15	23–37
2009–10	1	16	03–03–24	21–62
2010–11	2	7	13–08–13	36–38
2011–12	2	1	22–07–05	49–16
2012–13	1	10	10–06–14	30–33
2013–14	1	10	11-08-15	39-52
2014–15	1

Honours

Domestic Titles and honours

• Second Division: 1
  • 2012
• Third Division: 1
  • 1979

Players

Current squad

As of 16 January 2015, according to combined sources ^[16]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Daniel Fernandes (on loan from FC Twente) 2 DF Thanasis Papageorgiou 6 MF Alfredo Mejía 7 MF Christos Tzanis 8 MF Rogério Martins 9 MF Nicolas Diguiny 10 MF José María Cases 11 FW Dimitris Hasomeris 13 DF Sofyane Cherfa 15 DF Pape M'Bow 17 FW Manu Balda 18 DF Nikos Tsoumanis 19 MF Konstantinos Zdravos-Rizos

No. Position Player 20 MF Deniz Baykara (captain) 21 DF Giannis Christou 22 MF Stelios Iliadis 23 MF Romeu 24 GK Alexandros Paschalakis 27 MF Sebastián Setti 28 DF Santiago Villafañe 30 GK Giorgos Athanasiadis 70 FW Giorgos Litskas 71 DF Anastasios Frangoulis 84 MF Antonis Ladakis 92 DF Ioánnis Potourídis 99 FW Igor de Souza

Manager & Coaching Staff
As of 28 May 2014, according to Official Site ^[17]

Manager & Coaching staff
	José Manuel Roca	Manager
	Sakis Pantelidis	Assistant Manager
	Grigoris Bizas	Coach
	Giannis Plavoukos	Goalkeeper Coach
	Nikos Bacharidis	Youth Team Manager

Players Statistics

Appearances and Goals from 2006 – present

Only with Panthrakikos F.C. As of 3 July 2014 according to combined sources ^[18][19][20]

Nat	Name	Career	Level 1		Level 2		Nat Cup		Total
			app	goals	app	goals	app	goals	app	goals
	Deniz Baykara	2011–present	60	2	31	6	10	1	101	9
	Abdul Diallo	2006–10	37	5	47	12	4	0	88	17
	Yiannis Kanotidis	2007–11	40	1	43	0	4	0	87	1
	Giannis Christou	2011–present	48	1	27	1	9	0	84	2
	Fotis Konstantinidis	2005–09	22	1	54	4	8	0	84	5
	Dimitris Koutsopoulos	2010–2014	22	0	55	0	7	0	84	0
	Achilleas Sarakatsanos	2011–2014	48	0	27	1	8	1	83	2
	Robinho	2005–09	18	0	57	0	7	0	82	0
	Manuel Lopes	2007–11	37	1	39	1	1	0	77	2
	Spyros Vrontaras	2004–10 & 2012–13	28	0	40	0	2	0	70	0
	Munafo Horta	2009–13	32	1	25	1	9	0	66	2
	Christos Mingas	2011–13	22	0	26	7	9	0	57	7
	Antonis Ladakis	2012–present	51	2			2	0	53	2
	Bertrand Robert	2009–11	25	4	28	8			53	12
	Christos Tzanis	2012–present	40	7			7	3	47	10
	Nikos Bacharidis	2001–10	16	1	23	0	7	1	46	2
	Ludovic Clément	2008–10	38	2					38	2
	Adrián Lucero	2012–13	28	4			6	2	34	6
	Igor	2013–present	31	11			1	1	32	12
	Dimitris Papadopoulos	2012–13	25	11			5	1	30	12
	Marama Vahirua	2012–13	26	3			4	2	30	5
	Sito Riera	2008–09	28	5			1	0	29	5
	José María Cases	2013–present	19	6			1	0	20	6
	Nikos Soultanidis	2010–12			53	14	3	3	56	17
	Dimitris Souanis	2005–08			53	12	4	2	57	14
	Gábor Erős	2006–08			57	9	2	0	59	9
	Ronny van Es	2007–08			21	10	1	0	22	10

Appearances and Goals in Early years

According to combined sources

Nat	Name	Career	Level 1		Level 2		Nat Cup		Total
			app	goals	app	goals	app	goals	app	goals
	Apostolos Hatziioannidis	1969–77
	Filippos Aivazis	1967-84			405	89	36	22	441	111
	Zacharias Tilios	1964–76
	Archontis Katsaridis
	Kostas Vasilakakis	1973–95	256	10	140	25			396	35
	Zisis Tsekos	1981–00	230	20

Former players

• Former players with Wikipedia article see Category:Panthrakikos F.C. players.

Former players without Wikipedia article, based on their long term presence in Panthrakikos, players worthy of mention are Filippos Aivazis who holds the record for most appearances and most goals in the Beta Ethniki, Apostolakis (1956-64 Orfeas Komotini, 1964-69 AO Kavala), Zacharias Tilios, Stavros Svintridis, Christos Doulgerakis, Archontis Katsaridis, Manolis Rakitzoglou, Vasilis Fotidis and Kostas Kalaitzidis.

Chairmen & Managers

chairman	season	manager	level	rank
Panagiotis Margaritis	2001–02	Sakis Skoulis	006	001
	2002–03		005	001
	2003–04	Antonis Michalakopoulos	004	005
Yiannis Kitzidis	2004–05	Kostas Vasilakakis	004	001
	2005–06		003	003
	2006–07	Zisis Tsekos Dimitris Kalaitzidis Yiannis Gounaris Kostas Vasilakakis	002	011
	2007–08	Kostas Vasilakakis	002	003
	2008–09	Emilio Ferrera (June 5, 2008 – June 30, 2009)	001	011
Yiannis Kitzidis Dimitris Tzelepis	2009–10	Ilie Dumitrescu (July 1, 2009–Sept 20, 2009) Albert Cartier (Sept 20, 2009–Jan 12, 2010) Pavlos Dermitzakis (Jan 12, 2010–July 22, 2010)	001	016
Dimitris Tzelepis	2010–11	Kostas Vasilakakis (July 25, 2010–Nov 10) Emilio Ferrera (Nov 7, 2010–March 25, 2011) Savas Pantelidis (March 30, 2011–Oct 29, 2012)	002	007
	2011–12	Savas Pantelidis	002	001
	2012–13	Savas Pantelidis Pavlos Dermitzakis (Oct 31, 2012 – April 30, 2013)	001	010
	2013–14	Apostolos Mantzios (May 9, 2013 – Nov 5, 2014)	001	010
	2014–15	Apostolos Mantzios José Manuel Roca (Nov 10, 2014 -	001	00

Club crest and colours

The Panthrakikos crest is a sparkling flamming torch in a circle. The torch is surrounded by the club's name and the year of establishment. Traditional club's shirts are green . The club crest sits on the left side of the chest. Traditional club's shorts are black with black socks. Alternative strips for the season 2009–2010 are orange shirts, black shorts and socks.

Traditional colours 0	0 0	0 2010–	0 2011–	0 2011–
Alternative colours 2006–2008 0 2008–2009 0 2010–2011 0 2013–2014 References ↑ "Panthrakikos History".  ↑ "Panthrakikos History".  ↑ "2nd Level Table, 1962–63".  ↑ "2nd Level Table, year 1963–64".  ↑ "Mergers and Name Changes".  ↑ "Panthrakikos F.C. foundation, 1964".  ↑ "Mergers and Name Changes".  ↑ "merging with Orfeas Xylagani".  ↑ "2006.11.03, Savakis resignation".  ↑ "Beta Ethniki 2006–07".  ↑ "Super League 2008–09".  ↑ "Panthrakikos History-official site".  ↑ "2nd Level Final Tables".  ↑ "3rd Level Final Tables".  ↑ "merging with Orfeas Xylagani".  ↑ "Panthrakikos squad 2010".  ↑ "Panthrakikos Coaching staff".  ↑ "Panthraxstats (pdf)".  ↑ "insports.gr".  ↑ "epo, kypello".  External links Official site (Greek) Panthracrocs; news, photos, statistics (Greek) Panthraxclub; forum (Greek) Panthrakikos F.C. – current squad 1 Koutsopoulos 2 Papageorgiou 3 Diogo 5 Mikulić 6 Triantafyllou 7 Tzanis 8 Popović 10 Cases 11 Hasomeris 15 M'Bow 17 Balda 19 Zdravos-Rizos 20 Baykara 21 Christou 22 Katharios 23 Romeu 25 Ben Shabat 30 Athanasiadis 32 Makrydimitris 33 Sarakatsanos 34 Josse 77 Seydan 84 Ladakis 88 Skliopidis 99 Igor Coach: Mantzios Superleague Greece teams Current (2014–15) Asteras Tripoli Atromitos Ergotelis Kalloni Kerkyra Levadiakos Niki Volos OFI Olympiacos Panathinaikos Panetolikos Panionios Panthrakikos PAOK PAS Giannina Platanias Skoda Xanthi Veria Former AEK AEL Akratitos Apollon Kalamaria Apollon Smyrni Aris Aspida Xanthi Athinaikos Atromitos Piraeus Chalkida Chalkidona Diagoras Doxa Drama Edessaikos Egaleo Ethnikos Asteras Ethnikos Athens* Ethnikos Piraeus Fostiras Goudi Athens Ionikos Iraklis Kalamata Kallithea Kastoria Kavala Korinthos Makedonikos Megas Alexandros Megas Alexandros Katerini Naoussa Olympiakos Chalkida Olympiakos Volos Panachaiki Panargiakos Panegialios Panelefsiniakos Paniliakos Panserraikos Peiraikos Syndesmos* Pierikos Proodeftiki Rodos Thermaikos Thessaloniki Thrasyvoulos Trikala Vyzas *only in pre-HFF championships Former (from Cyprus) AEL Limassol APOEL EPA Larnaca Olympiakos Nicosia Omonia Nicosia Top division football seasons in Greece Panhellenic Championship SEGAS Championship: 1905–06 1906–07 1907–08 1908–09 1909–10 1910–11 1911–12 FCA Championship: 1921–22 1922–23 1923–24 1924–25 1925–26 1926–27 HFF Championship: 1927–28 1929–30 1930–31 1931–32 1932–33 1933–34 1935–36 1936–37 1937–38 1938–39 1939–40 1940–41 1942–43 1945–46 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1950–51 1952–53 1953–54 1954–55 1955–56 1956–57 1957–58 1958–59 Alpha Ethniki 1959–60 1960–61 1961–62 1962–63 1963–64 1964–65 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 Superleague Greece 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Panthrakikos F.C..