Successful Cypriot Exports
What did the cheese say when it looked in the mirror?
https://feelgoodfoodie.net/recipe/grilled-halloumi/
Today we are going to look at Cyprus’ most successful exports outside of halloumi and Peter Andre.
What do you mean, I’ve been mentioned twice on a football website?
There’s only ever officially been one representative of Cyprus in the Premier League. And even then, he didn’t do very well. But there have been some more successes, in a few other places. The Bundesliga, Serie A, Greece (because of course there was), Portugal, Belgium, and the Cypriots have spread as far as South Korea and Japan lately!
APOEL
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, the Cypriot League was deemed a feeder league for the Greek top division. For a few years at least (1966-67 until 72-73) the champions of the Cypriot Championship would go into Greece’s Alpha Ethniki.
Every time a team got “promoted” into the Alpha Ethniki, the season after, they would get sent back home for finishing in the relegation places. Olympiakos Nicosia were the first team to take part in this arrangement in the 1967-68 season where they finished second bottom with 6 wins and 11 draws from 34 games. It was a weird time in points allocation with 3 for a win, two for a draw and 1 for a loss, meaning they gained 57 points.
Then the Cypriot showing reads rather depressingly:
Season Team Wins Draws Losses Points Position
1968-69 AEL 2 1 31 39 18/18
1969-70 Olympiakos 3 3 28 43 17/18
1970-71 EPA Larnaca 3 4 27 43* 18/18
1971-72 Olympiakos 2 7 25 44 18/18
1972-73 Omonia 1 7 26 42 18/18
And then the 1973-74 season came along, with APOEL making an appearance, and actually showing up to the party. APOEL beat AEK Athens and drew with Panathinaikos in Cyprus as well as some other less shocking results for the time. In fact, that season, APOEL only lost four times at home. Away from home, the form was a little more depressing, picking up just 3 draws.
They… uh, they didn’t travel well is what I’m saying…
Their home form meant that they had avoided removal from the league on footballing grounds, finishing 13th out of 18.
Instead, geopolitics and war got involved. In the summer of 1974, the Turkish invasion happened and due to the conflict and the fallout involved, the team did not return. No team from Cyprus did after that.
But what of the team that played that season? Not a lot of information is available except for names, but some of the names are exquisite and should be etched in the annals of history.
I said annals. 2 ‘n’s. Get your head out of the gutter.
Georgios Pantziaras - George Beetroot. Played many years for APOEL in goal, then moved to Aris Thesalonikis for 6 seasons, making more than 100 appearances for the team before moving back to Cyprus, with APOEL and finishing his playing career with Apollon. Went on to manage Aris for a bit in 2002.
Odysseas Athanatos - Immortal Ulysses
Michalakis Kolokasis - Mickey Taro
Lefteris Poulias - Free Bird
Kattos Christou - Jesus’ Cat
Nikos Kritikos - Nick the Crete
Andros Miamilliotis - Andrew With Only The One Apple Tree or if you want to be really picky, Andrew From The Place With Only The One Apple Tree
Nikos Pantziaras - Nick Beetroot - spent his whole career at APOEL
Literal farmers league
2. Michalis Konstantinou & Giannis Okkas
I'll start with the career moves for both the players, so you can see why I grouped them together.
Konstantinou
1993-1997 - Paralimni 68 games 31 goals
1997-2001 - Iraklis Thesalonikis 119 games 60 goals
2001-2005 - Panathinaikos 94 games 34 goals
2005-2008 - Olympiakos Piraeus 57 games 17 goals
2008-2009 - Iraklis 13 games 3 goals
2009-2011 - Omonia 59 games 34 goals
2011-2012 - Anorthosis 15 games 3 goals
2012-2013 - AEL 19 games 6 goals
Okkas
1993-1997 Nea Salamina 53 games 16 goals
1997-2000 Anorthosis 72 games 51 goals
2000-2003 PAOK 80 games 38 goals
2003-2004 AEK Athens 24 games 9 goals
2004-2007 Olympiakos Piraeus 77 games 19 goals
2007-2008 Celta Vigo 24 games 6 goals
2008-2009 Omonia 23 games 9 goals
2009-2014 Anorthosis 97 games 27 goals
2014 Ermis Aradhippou 14 games 2 goals
The two strikers galavanted across Greece scoring goals wherever they went.
Konstantinou signed from Iraklis to Panathinaikos for 11.3 million euros, at the time, the most expensive signing made by a team in Greece ever. He repaid Panathinaikos with superb performances in the league and the Champios League, even scoring against Barcelona at the Nou Camp. He won the league title and Greek Cup in 2003-04. At Olympiakos, he managed to win another league and Cup double in 2005-2006 and 2007-2008 and another league title thrown in for good measure in between the two.
Okkas on the other hand, had a more tortuous merry go round to get to Olympiakos. But in Greece he won 4 Greek Cups and 3 league titles, the 3 titles with Olympiakos, earning two of them with Konstantinou as well. He had trials at West Ham and Derby County, but opted to move to Celta Vigo in Spain, who were in the Segunda at the time, playing in the same team as an 18-year-old Diego Costa.
These two did some amazing numbers in Greece and are in record books all around the place. Konstantinou already mentioned was the most expensive transfer at the time, is the top goalscorer in history for Iraklis, 11th at Panathinaikos and top scorer of all time for Cyprus. Okkas was the first player to score at the Karaiskakis and is the top appearance maker of all time for Cyprus.
Giasoumis Giasoumi was a striker at PAOK between 2001 and 2007 and everyone forgets he exists. Poor guy.
I remeber Giasoumi. I remember…
Okkas is now a coach, mostly working with the Cyprus youth teams from 2015 to 2022. Now he's back at Olympiakos, looking after their reserves.
His son is in Fulham's U23s team, so we might finally see another Cypriot play in the Premier League. No one's looking at you Muzzy Izzet.
3. Stephen Constantine
Listen, sometimes, it's not a player who goes out and does well abroad. Sometimes, it's a coach.
Stephen Constantine didn't do much as a footballer, playing amateur level in the US for the Pennsylvania Stoners… And the New York Pancyprian Freedoms. That's not what gets you on this list. His drive into coaching and what he's achieved doing it, is what gets you your name on this list.
Between 1999 and 2001 he became Nepal's national team coach and was awarded a medal for his efforts in getting the team to the final of the South Asian games. He then became India national team manager in 2002 and in 2003 got the team the silver medal in the Afro-Asian games. He left in 2005 and joined the staff at Millwall, which… fine I guess. Earn some money for a living as well.
In 2007, he became Malawi national team coach. It didn't go well and in 2008 he resigned. In 2009 he became Sudan national team manager. Then Rwanda, getting the team ready for the African Nations in 2016, but in January 2015, India wanted him. And he went for the 2nd time.
He got the team to the second round of World Cup qualifying for 2016, which was already a top result for them. In January 2016 India won the South Asian Football Federation Championship and took India on a 13 game unbeaten run, that included qualification for the 2019 Asian Cup and also won the Intercontinental Cup. Sports Illustrated in India named him coach of the year.
At the Asian Cup he stated he wanted to qualify from the group they were in, but they finished last in their group which included the UAE, Thailand and Bahrain. India lost to Bahrain from a 91st minute penalty. A draw in that game would have qualified them to the knock-out stage vs South Korea. Since they didn't qualify, he resigned.
Since July 2022, he has been manager of East Bengal Club. His story isn't done yet.
4. The current crop - Future success?
What of those countries and leagues mentioned right at the beginning? Well, I’ll tell you, if you got down this far.
I dropped off after Andrew From The Place With Only The One Apple Tree
Well, let’s have a look at some of the current players:
Pieros Sotiriou - Olympiakos Nicosia to APOEL (90,000 euro transfer) and then from APOEL to FC Copenhagen (2.5 million euro transfer). In Denmark, Sotiriou scored 25 goals in 75 games, and won a winners medal for the Danish Superliga in 2018-2019. In February 2020, Sotiriou signed for Astana in Kazakhstan (nice) for 5 million euros (very nice). He scored 6 goals in 14 games and got hold of a winners medal for the Kazakh Super Cup in 2020. In February 2021 he moved to Ludgorets Razgrad for 800,000 euros (not so very nice) where he scored 19 goals in 36 games and won the top title in Bulgaria in 2020-21 and 2021-2022. Since August 10th, he’s been playing for Hiroshima Sanfrecce in Japan, where he moved for 2 million euros and has 3 goals in 11 games for them, including 2 in the J League Cup Final, winning it for Sanfrecce.
Cypriots in Belgium - They love a Cypriot central defender in Belgium. There are currently three teams with a Cypriot sitting in the middle of their defence, with Konstantinos Laifis at Standard Liege, Fanos Katelaris at Oostende, and Stelios Andreou at Charleroi. Laifis has been in Belgium since 2016, and has made over 200 appearances for Liege, and won a Belgian Cup in 2018.
Cypriots in Italy - Grigoris Kastanos had been with the Juventus youth teams since the age of 16, signing with them in January 2014. He represented Juve in Serie A (alright, he did it once) and spent most of his time there, on load to other teams, including Pescara (twice), Frosinone, Zulte Waregem in Belgium and Salernitana. In the summer of 2022 he signed for Salernitana permanently. He has played 44 games in Serie A. Nicholas Ioannou is currently playing for Como in Serie B, going via the Manchester United youth teams, APOEL, Nottingham Forest and Aris. He currently has 41 appearances for the team.
Valentinos Shielis has been in South Korea since 2017. He’s doing fine, I guess. He is on his 3rd club in South Korea, after Suwon, Jeju and now with Geanju he has a K-League 2 Championship winners medal. Thought I had to put this in there, because I said South Korea at the beginning.
By the end of the January transfer window, this last entry in this list could be in shreds.
