Published:
30.05.2024, ora 23:04
- Olympiacos Piraeus defeated ACF Fiorentina in last night’s UEFA Conference League final.
- It’s the first time a Greek club wins a European club competition, and they managed to do it in Athens, the capital of their country.
Last night, the Agia Sophia in Athens, Greece hosted the country’s first European club competition final. It was a fiery clash between ACF Fiorentina and Olympiacos Piraeus, the most successful Greek club ever. After VAR disallowed Cristiano Biraghi’s (31 years old) goal for the Italian side, the match took a dramatic turn in extra time, when Ayoub El Kaabi (30 years old) managed to score the winning goal in the 116th minute. This goal also went through a VAR check, a long one for that matter. For almost 2 whole minutes, the entire arena went quiet, waiting for the referee’s positive response. Exactly 20 years after the Greece national team won the Euro 2004, their first European championship, Olympiacos won the first European club title for a Greek team.
The Dramatic Path of the Champions
Last season, the club from Piraeus reached only the 3rd spot in the Super League Greece 1, securing themselves a spot in the Europa League. Sadly, they finished 3rd in a group where they faced against West Ham United, SC Freiburg, and TSC Bačka Topola. This meant that the Greek club dropped to the Play-Offs for the Conference League, which they won 2-0 against Hungarian side Ferencváros TC.
During the Round of 16, Olympiacos lost at home to Maccabi Tel Aviv with a shocking score of 1-4. According to Opta Analyst, the Greek side had the chance of 0.1% of winning the competition at that stage. Even more shockingly, they managed to win 1-6 away from home and qualify to the Quarter-Finals.
This next stage was not easy, as most of their matches until now. Fenerbahçe SK put up a good fight but were ultimately eliminated on penalties. Their Semi-Finals rivals, Aston Villa, were initially one of the favorites to win the European trophy but were comfortably beaten with a score of 6-2 on aggregate by Olympiacos Piraeus.
As mentioned before, the Final was a pretty even contest, with almost equal possession, but the Greeks managed to pull through during the last minutes, smashing Fiorentina’s dreams. The Italian team was in their second consecutive Conference League Final, but they have yet to win one. It’s safe to say that Olympiacos had many ups and downs and were seen as underdogs in most matches, but they have proven everybody wrong in the end.
The 2 Key Components
Olympiacos Piraeus had a good, strong squad, but most fans would agree that there were 2 people who were particularly special this season: the coach, José Luis Mendilibar (63 years old), and their star player, Ayoub El Kaabi. Mendilibar joined the Piraeus-based team in February 2024, before the Conference League Play-Off. The Spanish coach has been incredible for his team, not only leading them to their first European title but also to a respectable 3rd place in the Super League Greece 1, winning matches against powerful rivals AEK Athens and PAOK Thessaloniki, the league winners. He is only the second-ever manager to win back-to-back European titles with two different clubs, after managing to win the Europa League with Sevilla last season.
Ayoub El Kaabi, the Moroccan hero of Greece, joined Olympiacos in August 2023, from Qatari club Al-Sadd. The 30-year-old forward is at his first big club in Europe and had an incredible season. He scored 33 times and assisted 3 times in 50 matches, managing not only to be the top scorer of the Super League Greece 1 but also become the player with the most goals in a single Conference League season so far.
