Panathinaikos going back to its roots

When faced with difficulties or tough situations we tend to adapt or change whether by force or on our own. And for Panathinaikos this season that couldn't be more of the case. A club with a 110+ year history that throughout it all have always been at the top of the Greek League competing for titles or simply winning. Now they have been forced to live with a mid table place without much hope of something better with the current owner Alafouzos making a mess of things and now having distanced himself from the club (financially) making things worse. More importantly he's stopped funding the club completely putting the team in a situation where the only solution is to sell their best players in order to stay afloat and avoid punishment from FIFA, who usually doesn't take situations where players aren't getting paid very lightly. ​

Panathinaikos' first football team in 1908

How the club got to this point is a story in itself, the club overspent several times to try and stay competitive with the European elite but in a small country like Greece, and with the continued corruption plaguing the league for years it was never self sustainable. Add the horrible decisions made by current Panathinaikos owner Alafouzos of firing Dabizas when a decent plan was in place and the team was on the up having won the Greek Cup in 2012, as well as the disastrous coaching and moves made by the previous coach (Andreas Strammatoni) and the result was the debt growing to levels where the club is now in serious danger of being relegated, and isn't an attractive option for anyone to buy at the moment.

 When PAO was first founded the aim was to spread and make more known the new sport of football to the Athenian and Greek public in general as well as to build a team away from the Panellinios athletic club organization that was in place at the time. Since then they built a strong relationship with the people that within time has built generations of Greeks with a deep love for the team. So with the difficult situation currently facing the club (by desperation), it has made Panathinaikos go back to It's roots of playing Greek players that by chance know what it means to play for the club (C.Donis/Kourbelis), and put a lot more faith in It's academy which really was always the only way forward for the club when it was having it's most success in Europe building through a strong core of Greek players coming through, whether that was in the early 70's with Domazos/ Antoniadis, the 80's, or the 90's/2000's (W/ Basinas/Karagounis/etc) where the club made it to a European final (1972), a semi final (1984-85/1995-966) and the quarterfinals a few times in the 2000's.

​Luckily behind the great work done by Takis Fyssas and the previous head of the academy Thodoris Eleftheriadis that recently left to take over the Greek under 15 team left things in great shape (the club went the whole first half of the season without a loss at any of their youth level's, U15/U17/U20). Before leaving he spoke about how PAO need to save their current academy as its there "gold" in place, Players like Emmanoulidis, Miggos, Oikonomopoulos and others within the younger age groups (Athanasakopoulos, Karagiannis) have shown that they may have an impact in the first team one day. 

​With a coach as good as Ouzounidis who knows the club as well as anyone having played with the team in a successful period during the 90's, that knows what it means to play for the club, how to develop players having had a hand in promoting players such as Mantalos, SIopis, etc along his various coaching spells throughout his ten years coaching in Greece you can see how PAO has some good pieces in place to move ahead through a difficult period and perhaps get back to It's previous highs using it's history as a guide in how to move forward.

(Ouzounidis's contract is up this summer it goes without saying that every PAO fan is hoping he stays)

By Apostolos for Hellas Football