Vangelis Marinakis: Nine years at the helm of Olympiacos

It has been nine years, and yet it seems like yesterday. It is that "huge" sound that the port makes on everything that decides the present and future of Olympiacos. The discussion is about Sokratis Kokkalis who with the passing of time wants to withdraw, but mainly about the new, Vangelis Marinakis, the son of Miltiadis, who was raised in Karaiskaki Stadium.

It was 18 June, 2010.  Now it is 18 June, 2019. How time flies… and that is perhaps the greatest indication of his success.

In that nine years a team as big as AEK collapsed into the third category until it could pull its head out of the water. A colossus like Panathinaikos had its own "stone" period. In those nine years Ivan Savvidis took a half-dead PAOK and managed to change its fate.

It was the same years in which Aris went up and down in the elevator until it   could stand on its feet, and Iraklis was definitively lost.

That is probably the most just comparison - what others went through in Greece's toughest post-war decade and how Olympiacos stayed above water, when in the summer of 2010 it was in the toughest positionof anyone. It had a 40mn euro budget hole, with an empty roster and a team that barely managed to placed 5th in the preceding playoffs.

The Piraeans jumped into the water and got out without a drop touching them. The championship with the first match against the "multi-participatory" and finally a draw with its own record of 7 in a row.  Great Champions League victories against championship teams of England (Manchester United), Italy (Juventus), Germany (Dortmund), Spain (Atletico Madrid), France (Montpellier), and next (Marseille, Emirates), beyond comprehension. Great coaches who after leaving here reached the elite (Valverde, Jardim, Silva). Greeks who...

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