The transition from the only well-known example of Olympiacos football player coming from the academies, Dimitris Eleftheropoulos, to the seven-year promotion of four – Retsos, Androutsos, Manthatis, Nikolaou – by Paulos Bento to the current historical condition of the promotion of the K19 of erythroleuks in European champion.
It was matchday 3 of the 1996-97 season. Olympiacos, newly brought to the bench by Dusan Bajevic, faced Herakles in Thessaloniki.
In reading the lineup, many stopped at her first first name: Dimitris Eleftheropoulos. At the age of 20, he would make his debut with the red and whites, having previously spent the entire pre-previous season as third in the hierarchy and the one immediately before on loan at Progressivitis.
Bajevic did not see something in Fotis Strakosias, who had started in the first two matches (with Olympiakos beating Kastoria and OFI, without even conceding a goal), or, he saw something much more in Pitzirikas and decided in that point, to make the change.
Alli, at home, did not have to do again in that season, finding, highlighting the main goalkeeper of Olympiakos for the next, dominant for the club, eight years.
For many more, “Ele” was the example, the permanent nominal refrain when the conversation turned to the Olympiakos academies and the process of connecting them with the first team.
He was the only one who had made it all the way. He was the only one the club had pulled out of its guts.
Such a process was not and will never be a panacea for any club. But in the era of modern football, which was then slowly beginning to dominate, the systematization of such a process, beyond the emotion, the bond that everything native causes, would be – as has happened since then in several cases of teams around the world – a blessing, able to make a difference, at various levels (sporting, financial).
Bento’s four
It took exactly – rather than a month – two decades. Europa League second qualifying round replay.
Olympiacos, with the newcomer – also – Paulo Bento on the bench, welcomed Arouka, having won (1-0) in the first game.
And here the reading of the lineup did not take long to stop at one name: Panagiotis Retsos. Just as he had turned 18.
Many good things were heard about his progress in the nursery sections of the club, the vast majority of them as a central defender.
The Portuguese coach, who as soon as he set foot in Athens immediately set his sights on the academies (coming from one of the teams with the all-time best relative divisions, Sporting), started him as a right-back.
And he was one of the best in the stressful, as it turned out, qualification of the Red Whites.
In that game, coming on as a substitute in overtime, the ’97 Giorgos Manthatis also appeared. In the previous season, he had taken a few minutes in two Cup games (with Chania and Asteras), but the essential baptism of fire at a professional level happened then.
Retsos that season played in 34 games in all competitions. Androutsos 30. Manthatis 27. Dimitris Nikolaou, born in ’98 and partner of Retsus in the heart of the defense in the second team, appeared in the middle of the season, in January.
They successfully formed the “four of Bento”, defining an entire era, the result of the most characteristic decision – the result of a specific football philosophy – of the Portuguese technician during his coaching tenure at Olympiakos.
Regardless of the competitive benefits. Regardless of what, how and how much each of the frames did and is doing in his professional path since then.
Regardless of even the way in which the transition was made, but also the consideration secured by the sale of Retsos (a record in the history of a Greek club for a Greek footballer) at the very end of that season and later than that of Nikolaos, the door that opened and bridged the two worlds – academies and first team – was probably one of the generative causes of the 2024 Youth League winners.
The champions of Europe
From the one and only for decades (up until then and since) at the end of the 20th century, to the “Bendo Four” seven years ago and now to an entire team, a team that was crowned on Monday night without letting the slightest doubt about her superiority, European champion, for the first time in the history of Olympiakos, for the first time at the collective level in the history of Greek football.
From Eleftheropoulos, Retsos, Androutsos, Manthatis and Nikolaou to Sina, Koutsogoulas, Konstantinos Kostoulas, Prekate, Alafakis, Bakulas, Mouzakitis, Papakanellos, Mouzakitis, Pneumonidis, Babis Kostoulas, who started in the final, Exarchos, Liatsikouras , Loli, Tanoulis, Damas, Panagakos, Gatopoulos, who completed the mission of the final, Kouraklis, Rollakis, Arsenidis, Toufakis and Soufkas, who traveled to Nyon and the great unlucky one due to his injuries and perennial leader of this bakery, from the previous competition divisions, Christou (s.s. the one who together with Koutsogoulas lifted the trophy).
No one can predict and prejudge their evolution. Obviously their footballing passport at first team level now, whenever it is considered in practice, has been stamped with the most emphatic stamp that at nursery level can be put on.
It is understood that in this process the quantity does not (can) determine the slightest thing. The passage, however, from the measured on the fingers of one hand reference of specific examples that emerged from the academies to the commemoration – just this one for a start – of an entire group seems able in itself to consolidate without doubts, a mode of operation, to concretize a methodology, a perception, approach, philosophy.
Especially when this team is already European champion.
