Panionios F.C.

Panionios

Full name	ΠΑΕ Πανιώνιος Γ.Σ.Σ. (Pan-Ionian Gymnastics Society of Smyrna)
Nickname(s)	Κυανέρυθροι (Cyan-Reds) Ιστορικός (Historic) Πάνθηρες (Panthers)
Founded	14 September 1890 (1890-09-14), as Orpheus Smyrni
Ground	Nea Smyrni Stadium Athens, Greece
Ground Capacity	11,700
Owner(s)	Nikos Zamanis (33.5%) Christos Daras (33.5%)
Chairman	Christos Daras
Head Coach	Marinos Ouzounidis
League	Superleague Greece
2015–16	Superleague Greece, 5th
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours Third colours

Departments of Panionios G.S.S.
Football	Basketball	Basketball Women's
Volleyball	Waterpolo	Handball
Athletics	Gymnastics	Swimming
Cycling	Judo	Chess

Panionios G.S.S. FC (Greek: ΠΑΕ Πανιώνιος Γ.Σ.Σ.), or with its full name Panionios Gymnastikos Syllogos Smyrnis (Greek: Πανιώνιος Γυμναστικός Σύλλογος Σμύρνης, Pan-Ionian Gymnastics Society of Smyrna) is a Greek association football club based in Nea Smyrni suburb of Athens, part of Panionios G.S.S. multi-sport club. Founded in 1890 in Smyrna as Orpheus Smyrni, they are one of the oldest and most historic Greek teams.

In the wake of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22) and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, Panionios was transferred to Athens. They have won two Greek Cups (in 1979 and 1998), while they were runners-up in the Greek Championship during the 1950-51 and 1970-71 seasons. They have won also the 1971 Balkans Cup and reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1998–99 season.

The team currently competes in the Super League Greece. They play their home games in Nea Smyrni Stadium with a capacity of 11.700 seats.

Early history

Nea Smyrni Stadium

The club was founded in 1890 in Smyrna (Σμύρνη) currently İzmir, under the name of "Orpheus Music and Sports Club" by part of the Greek population living in the city during the Ottoman era. In 1893 some Orpheus members keen on sports formed a separate organization, the "Gymnasion Club", and started holding yearly sports competitions. In 1898, Orpheus and Gymnasion merged again to form Panionios GSS. Members of the Panionios sports club represented Greece in all international track & field games until these developed in the modern Olympic Games.

After the Greek military defeat in 1922 the club was forced to transfer firstly in Athens and later to the Athenian suburb of New Smyrna where lots of the population of Smyrna immigrated. The club has a tradition of cultivating all major sports and was the first Greek club to establish a track and field division for women, in 1925. Another major example of the club's contribution to Greek sports rests in the fact that it was Panionios that introduced Basketball and Volleyball in Greek sports society.

With the gradual transformation of men's football and basketball into professional sports, Panionios FC and Panionios BC became privately owned clubs operating under the auspices of the traditional "amateur sports" Panionios GSS. To date, Panionios remains the only sports club in Greece that was awarded the Golden Cross from the Athens Academy as a recognition of the club's rich and continuous enrichment of Greek sports.^[1]

Recent history

Panionios has spent nearly its entire history in the Greek First Division (now called 'Superleague'), having missed out from competing in Greek football's top division only twice in its more than 100-year history. Within this, Panionios rose quite often to high levels, with top achievement in terms of the league being the 2nd position that the club reached in 1971, losing the title to AEK Athens.

Alexandros Tziolis

Panionios has produced all three major Greek strikers of the 1980s, namely Nikos Anastopoulos (later of Olympiakos), Thomas Mavros (later of AEK Athens), and Dimitris Saravakos (later of Panathinaikos). Other notable players coming out of the club in the 1990s include Nikos Tsiantakis (later of Olympiacos) and Takis Fyssas, later of Panathinaikos, Benfica and member of Greek national team. Within the 2000s another five Greek national team players came out from the club, namely Alexandros Tziolis, Evangelos Mantzios, Nikos Spiropoulos, Grigoris Makos and Giannis Maniatis.

The club had faced financial difficulties which triggered the transfer of the ownership to the municipality of Nea Smyrni in 1992. Those difficulties remained all through the 1990s forcing the team's league performance to drop. Yet, it remained in a high level and managed to win the Greek Football Cup competition in 1998 and participate successfully in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup the year after, reaching the quarterfinals. In December 2001 large part of the club's shares moved away from the Municipality back to private hands, where working around bankruptcy legislation the club was renamed to Neos Panionios FC, to avoid the threat of relegation from the first division.

Constantinos Tsakiris period

Álvaro Recoba

In 2004, shipowner Constantinos Tsakiris was elected president of the "amateur sports" Panionios GSS. Panionios won the women's Basketball Championship in 2006, the club's first in a team sport, and the women's volleyball team advanced to the first division. In 2006, Tsakiris acquired 85% of Neos Panionios FC stock and started restructuring the team from scratch. He changed the name of the club back to the original Panionios GSS FC and hired German coach Ewald Lienen who, during his first year created a team that made it to the top 5 of the Greek Super League and on to the UEFA Cup. Tsakiris has also unveiled an ambitious plan to have the aging football ground and athletics track demolished, and build a modern multi-sport arena in its place. Apart from a 12.000 capacity football stadium, the proposed complex would include facilities for basketball, volleyball, aquatic sports, track & field, boxing, gymnastics, wrestling and more.^[2]

On the summer transfer window of 2008, the club signed Uruguay national team members Álvaro Recoba and Fabián Estoyanoff, but shortly after Lienen resigned by mutual consent on November 11, 2008, reason being disagreement with the Panionio's board.^[3] On November 12, 2008 Greek coach Takis Lemonis was hired ^[4] and resigned on December 3, 2008 after the refuse of Panionio's board to accept Lemoni's request to dismiss three members of Panionio's coaching and management staff.^[5][6] Assistant coach Joti Stamatopoulos lead the club until the end of the season. He was replaced by Belgian manager Emilio Ferrera.

Under the Tsakiris presidency, the club built its own training facility just outside Athens in the region of Koropi. The training ground is operating since 2008 but was fully completed in 2009.

Crest and colours

Panionios' colours are blue, red and white, mainly used as trim or as an alternative. The first emblem of Panionios in Smyrna was a figure of Nike. On the appearances of the team there was a characteristic diagonial strip, which can be seen today in the crest of the team.

1908

1924

1930

1997–98

2012–13

2013–14 (A)

2014–15 (A)

Current sponsorships:

• Great Shirt Sponsor: Joker
• Official Sport Clothing Manufacturer: Tempo
• Official Broadcaster: NOVA Greece

Honours

Domestic

• Superleague Greece
  • Runners-up (2): 1951, 1971

• Greek Cup
  • Winners (2): 1978-79, 1997-98 ^[7]
  • Runners-up: 1952, 1961, 1967, 1989

• Athens FCA Championship
  • Winners (1): 1951

European

• Balkans Cup
  • Winners (1): 1971
  • Runners-up (1): 1986

• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
  • Quarter-finals (1): 1998–99

European matches

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away
1964–65	Intertoto Cup	Group C1	Malmö FF	1–1	1–5
			Dinamo Zagreb	2–2*
			Toulouse	0–3*
1969–70	Inter-Cities Fairs Cup	1st Round	Hansa Rostock	2–0	0–3
1971–72	UEFA Cup	1st Round	Atlético Madrid	1–0	1–2
		2nd Round	Ferencváros	0–2 (bye)	0–6
1979–80	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	1st Round	Twente	4–0	1–3
		2nd Round	IFK Göteborg	1–0	0–2
1987–88	UEFA Cup	1st Round	Toulouse	0–1	1–5
1998–99	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	1st Round	FC Haka	2–0	3–1
		2nd Round	Apollon Limassol	3–2	0–1
		Quarter-finals	Lazio	0–4	3–0
2003–04	UEFA Cup	1st Round	FC Nordsjælland	2–1	1–0
		2nd Round	Barcelona	0–3	0–2
2004–05	UEFA Cup	1st Round	Udinese	3–1	0–1
		Group stage	Newcastle United	0–1		4th
			Sporting CP		1–4
			Dinamo Tbilisi	5–2
			Sochaux		0–1
2007–08	UEFA Cup	1st Round	Sochaux	0–1	2–0
		Group stage	Helsingborgs IF		1–1	4th
			Galatasaray	0–3
			Austria Wien		1–0
			Bordeaux	2–3
2008	UEFA Intertoto Cup	2nd round	OFK Beograd	3–1	0–1
		3rd round	Napoli	0–1	0–1

• In the summer of 1964 Panionios took part in the Cup Rapanos in place of Olympiacos FC, who retired after two games, against Toulouse (2–4) and Dinamo Zagreb (0–4). The results were calculated in the standings without replay for Panionios. Panionios so had three games: two at home Kaftantzoglio Stadium, which had a lights away with Malmo. The away game against Toulouse, which refused to be played by Olympiakos, ended 3–0 for the French team.

European record

Current squad

As of 18 January 2016^[8]

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 Nikolaos Papadopoulos 3 DF Christos Tasoulis 5 DF Vasilis Patsatzoglou 6 DF Evangelos Ikonomou 7 MF Panagiotis Korbos 8 MF Bruno Chalkiadakis 9 FW Anastasios Karamanos (on loan from Olympiacos) 10 MF Kenan Bargan 11 FW Karim Ansarifard 12 GK Lefteris Astras 13 GK Sokratis Dioudis (on loan from Club Brugge) 14 FW Anastasios Bakasetas 16 DF Konstantinos Vlachos

No. Position Player 18 MF Giorgos Bletsas 19 MF Giorgos Masouras 20 DF Leonidas Argyropoulos 21 MF Manolis Siopis 22 GK Andreas Gianniotis (on loan from Olympiacos) 23 DF Stauros Mitkas 24 DF Stelios Pozatzidis 26 MF Leonardo Villalba 33 MF Fanis Tzandaris (on loan from Olympiacos) 37 MF Valentinos Vlachos 44 DF Spyros Risvanis 64 MF Nikos Katharios

Notable former players

• 

  Rafik Djebbour

• 

  Fabián Estoyanoff

• 

  Boško Balaban

• 

  Andreas Samaris

Former coaches

See also

• Panionios
• Panionios B.C.
• Nea Smyrni Stadium

References

External links

• Official football club website
• Official basketball club website