Georgios Tzavellas

Georgios Tzavellas (Greek: Γεώργιος Τζαβέλλας; born 26 November 1987) is a Greek professional footballer who plays for PAOK FC and the Greek national team as a left back.

Club career

Kerkyra

Tzavellas began his professional career with Kerkyra in a home match against Larissa (0–0).In Kerkyra played in 23 games (two goals) before signed for Panionios in January 2008.

Panionios

After signing for Panionios, Tzavellas was given the number 31. He made his debut on 13 September 2008 in the 0–1 away win versus Panserraikos. He scored his first goal on 7 December 2008 in the 45th minute in the 1–1 draw with Larissa. In his first full season, Tzavellas went on to make 17 appearances, scoring two goals. The 2009–10 season began brightly for Tzavellas as he cemented his place in the squad. In his second season with Panionios, he made a total of 24 appearances, starting all 24, but not scoring.

Eintracht Frankfurt

On 3 June 2010, the left back signed a three-year contract with Eintracht Frankfurt, which spent 1.2 million euros to sign him.^[1] He soon became a member of Eintracht's starting eleven. On 12 March 2011, Tzavellas scored his first Bundesliga goal during an away match against Schalke. He managed to beat German international goalkeeper Manuel Neuer with an effort from 73 meters, setting a new record for the longest distance a Bundesliga goal was ever scored from.^[2]

During the Bundesliga match against Werder Bremen on 8 April 2011, Tzavellas suffered a partial rupture of the cruciate ligament in his left knee. He missed the remainder of the 2010–11 season.^[3] Eintracht were relegated to 2. Bundesliga at the end of the season.

During summer 2011, Bundesliga new-boys Augsburg were reported to want the Greece defender, who was under contract until 2013, to strengthen their squad ahead of what promised to be a difficult season. At the same time, Tzavellas was rumoured to want to leave Eintracht Frankfurt following their relegation from the top flight. However, his agent, Paul Koutsoliakos, stated: "There is simply no truth in this." Eintracht Frankfurt general manager Bruno Hübner added: "We would refuse to accept any loan arrangements in this respect as something like this would just postpone a permanent transfer for the player. We would be in the same situation in 12 months." ^[4]

Monaco

An injury to his left knee towards the end of the 2010-11 season, put the knockout and the relegation of the team, substantially accelerated its consignment of borrowing to Monaco at the end of next season. On 31 January 2012, it was announced that Tzavellas would leave Eintracht Frankfurt and join French Ligue 2 outfit Monaco with immediate effect.^[5] Under the guidance of Claudio Ranieri, the Greek international left-back, helped the Monegasque escalate in Ligue 1, scoring twice in 24 appearances during their promotion season, but French Football News understands that Monaco’s left back Giorgos Tzavellas is in advanced negotiations with PAOK Salonika after being considered as ‘dead wood’ by Monaco manager. It is also the towering hurdle set by the Russian team owner, Dmitry Rybolovlev and very expensive signings made, essentially paved the way for the repatriation and the agreement with PAOK.^[6] The left back who has spent two seasons with the club is understood to have agreed to move to the club but Monaco and PAOK are currently in negotiations regarding the fee.^[7]

PAOK

On 2 September 2013, he signed a four years' contract with PAOK ^[8] and made his club debut on 14 September 2013 against Veria.He scored his first goal with the club in a 1-1 away draw against Atromitos. On 19 September 2013, he made his first ever appearance in UEFA competitions in a 2-1 home victory against FC Shakhter Karagandy. ^[9]

After six months in PAOK and his commitment by scoring the winning goal to the victory against the Greek giant Olympiakos, he believes that "this time, there has nothing to envy from Monaco and it made me very positive impression! We have an excellent administrative and organization of football, the club operates on a purely European standards and the most important is that the administrative leader has the vision to reach the high score! As a player I can say that I do not miss anything of what I had in Montecarlo! I believe in the team all the conditions required to look up ..."^[10]

He scored twice in his first season with the club, but undoubtedly the most important was the winning goal, on 9 March 2014, against the champions Olympiacos F.C. In January 2015, Deportivo La Coruna were in advanced talks to sign Tzavellas from PAOK but the deal will not go through. The negotiations didn’t pay off for the loan of the Greek left back to Deportivo and as long as the deal could not be reached consequently the transfer falls through. At the moment Tzavellas remains a PAOK player but his situation is still wide open as the transfer window has not closed yet.^[11]

On mid-March 2015, official PAOK informed Tzavellas that he can now return to training with the first team, since for over a month the 27-year-old defender was talking part in the practices of the U20 squad of the team, due to a quarrel with Aggelos Anastasiadis the ex-coach of PAOK.^[12]

He started the 2015-16 season as a main left-back and in contrary to last year's season considers that the treatment from Igor Tudor is different, something that was confirmed in his quarrel with his old teammate Facundo Pereyra in preparation. Incidentally, Tzavellas is among the best players of PAOK till now, refuting those who said that he could not be a member of the club.^[13] On 18 October 2015, Tzavellas scored his first Superleague goal with PAOK for the 2015-16 season against Iraklis in a 3-3 away draw.^[14] On 7 February 2016, in an episodic derby Super League away match against rivals Olympiakos, Tzavellas and Luka Milivojević were involved in an incident, which was ended with an unsportsmanlike conduct by Olympiakos' Serbian midfielder, resulting to leave the field for some time because he was bleeding. ^[15] Eventually he was expelled at the second half due to a second yellow card, leaving his club with 10 players. ^[16] It was his 7th red card in his career, but the 1st that his club did not win despite his absence. ^[17]

International career

Greece

After his impressive performances for Panionios, Tzavellas was called up to the Greek national football team on 15 November 2009 by Otto Rehhagel to face Ukraine in the second leg of the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification playoffs. However he did not feature in this game.^[18] On 11 May 2010, Tzavellas was named in Rehhagel's 30 man provisional World Cup squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.^[19]

He made his international debut in a Euro 2012 qualifier against Croatia on 7 September 2010.^[20]

Tzavellas' season year with PAOK was his passport not only to be called from Greek national manager Fernando Santos to the 30 man provisional World Cup squad, but also to the final 23-man squad for 2014 FIFA World Cup.^[21]

Career statistics

National team	Year	Apps	Goals
Greece	2010	3	0
	2011	2	0
	2012	3	0
	2013	3	0
	2014	2	0
	Total	13	0

Honours

• France Ligue 2
  • Champions (1): 2013

References

External links

• Giorgos Tzavellas at fussballdaten.de (German)
• Giorgos Tzavellas – FIFA competition record
• Giorgos Tzavellas – UEFA competition record
• ESPN FC profile

Greece squads Greece squad – UEFA Euro 2012 1 Chalkias 2 Maniatis 3 Tzavellas 4 Malezas 5 K. Papadopoulos 6 Makos 7 Samaras 8 A. Papadopoulos 9 Liberopoulos 10 Karagounis (c) 11 Mitroglou 12 Tzorvas 13 Sifakis 14 Salpingidis 15 Torosidis 16 Fotakis 17 Gekas 18 Ninis 19 Papastathopoulos 20 Holebas 21 Katsouranis 22 Fortounis 23 Fetfatzidis Coach: Santos Greece squad – 2014 FIFA World Cup 1 Karnezis 2 Maniatis 3 Tzavellas 4 Manolas 5 Moras 6 Tziolis 7 Samaras 8 Kone 9 Mitroglou 10 Karagounis (c) 11 Vyntra 12 Glykos 13 Kapino 14 Salpingidis 15 Torosidis 16 Christodoulopoulos 17 Gekas 18 Fetfatzidis 19 Papastathopoulos 20 Holebas 21 Katsouranis 22 Samaris 23 Tachtsidis Coach: Santos