The Kings of Greek football
Olympiacos is the most-successful club in Greek football history – and one West Ham United have now faced on four occasions previously.
Crowned champions a record 47 times, Cup winners on 28 occasions and domestic double winners on a record 18 occasions, the club is based in Piraeus, which is the world-famous port city within the Greater Athens area.
Olympiacos became the first Greek club to play in European competition when they competed in the 1959/60 European Cup, losing 3-5 on aggregate to AC Milan in the preliminary round.
West Ham United faced the Greek Cup winners six years later as European Cup Winners’ Cup holders, in the second round of the same competition.
Goals from Johnny Byrne, Peter Brabrook and two from Geoff Hurst secured a 4-0 first-leg win at the Boleyn Ground on 24 November 1965, before Martin Peters netted twice in Greece a week later on 1 December to secure a 2-2 draw and 6-2 aggregate victory.
We also hosted them in a pre-season match at the Boleyn Ground in August 2006, when Marlon Harewood scored in a 1-1 draw. Mexico international Nery Castillo netted Olympiacos’s goal.
Of course, the fourth meeting was in Piraeus a fortnight ago, on 23 October, when Kostas Fortounis and Rodinei scored first-half goals in a 2-1 win for the Greeks. Lucas Paquetá volleyed a late consolation for the Londoners.
The Super League winning duo
He may not have enjoyed the best period of his career at West Ham United, but Roberto is held in high regard in Piraeus.
The Spanish goalkeeper initially moved to Olympiacos on loan from Atlético Madrid in July 2013 and beat out Hungarian Balázs Megyeri and former Hammer Roy Carroll to become the Greeks’ first-choice stopper later that year.
With Roberto in goal, Olympiacos won three straight Super League Greece titles, a Greek Cup in 2015 and reached the UEFA Champions League round of 16 once and group stage on two occasions.
The Spaniard started European wins over the likes of Manchester United, Benfica, Anderlecht, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, Arsenal and Dinamo Zagreb, made 117 appearances in total, conceded just 98 goals and kept 59 clean sheets.
On 67 of those 117 occasions, Roberto shared a pitch with another future Hammer, Arthur Masuaku.
The DR Congo international left wing-back joined Olympiacos from French club Valenciennes a year after Roberto, in July 2014, aged 20.
The attack-minded Masuaku played 74 times for Olympiacos in total and scored two goals across two successful seasons. He won Super League Greece titles in both seasons, and also started that 2015 Greek Cup final victory over Skoda Xanthi.
Among the duo’s teammates that day was Kostas Fortounis, who scored Olympiacos’s opening goal in their 2-1 win over West Ham in Piraeus a fortnight ago.
A third player who represented both clubs was Nigeria international forward Emmanuel Emenike.
The striker made 16 appearances for the Irons on loan from Turkish club Fenerbahçe in early 2016, with his only two goals coming in a 5-1 FA Cup fourth-round win at Blackburn Rovers that February.
He then moved to Olympiacos on a permanent basis in July 2017 and scored on his debut in a UEFA Champions League qualifying win over FK Partizan of Serbia. However, again his goals were restricted to cup competitions and he departed in July 2018.
Current Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca was part of Manuel Pellegrini’s backroom team at West Ham United in 2018/19. Prior to that, the Italian midfielder had played for Olympiacos during the 2009/10 season.
From The Valley to the Acropolis
Diego Poyet joined West Ham United during Sam Allardyce’s reign as manager in the summer of 2014, having impressed as a teenager at Charlton Athletic in the EFL Championship the previous season.
A midfielder, Poyet made ten appearances for the Irons across three years, most notably scoring the winning penalty in a UEFA Europa League qualifying shootout victory at Maltese club Birkirkara in the summer of 2015.
Poyet was loaned out to Huddersfield Town, MK Dons and back to Charlton before departing in 2016. He then spent spells with Argentinian club Godoy Cruz and Cypriot club Pafos before retiring in 2020, aged just 24.
Poyet has since assisted his father, former Chelsea and Uruguay star Gus, during his managerial roles at Universidad Catolica in Chile, then, since February 2022, with the Greece national team – which is why he is mentioned here!
Away from football, the younger Poyet has also caught the eye with his physique, which he has honed and toned by bodybuilding.
Among the other Hammers who have also plied their trade in Greece at one point in their respective careers were striker Mike Small, who earned a move to West Ham in 1991 after impressing for PAOK, and mid-2000s promotion-winning manager Alan Pardew, who had a spell in charge at Aris in the same city, Thessaloniki, in 2022.
Incidentally, Pardew took West Ham to the same city to face his future employers in the summer of 2006, when pre-season matches ended 2-2 against Aris and in a 1-2 defeat against PAOK a week before the aforementioned visit of Olympiacos to the Boleyn Ground.
