AEK’s Rollercoaster: From Champions to Rebuilding

AEK’s Rollercoaster: From Champions to Rebuilding

By Greg Gavalas

It has been a real rollercoaster ride for AEK since winning the Championships for the first time in 24 years in season 2017/18.

AEK won the Championship that year from PAOK by 6 points with an impressive 21 wins from 30 games and conceded just 12 goals, proving that a great defence wins you trophies.

Under the guidance of Manolo Jimenez the Athens club built a very good team all round, with Vasilis Barkas in goals, Ognjen Vranjes leading the defence with very good partners next to him in Dmytro Chygrynskiy and Kostas Lambropoulos.

Also in defence Rodrigo Galo was a great right back but also proved his worth with great performances higher up at as a right midfielder.

What worked well with that was Lazaros Christodoulopoulos on the left, the Salonika born midfielder had, arguably his best season to date, scoring great goals but also very important goals, it gave AEK a dimension we have not seen since, combined with Sergio Araujo up front who was scoring at a free rate with support from Lazaros, Petros Mantalos and Tassos Bakasetas.

Panagiotis Kone also gave great support to Andre Simoes and Kostas Galanopoulos in the midfield.

It all combined for a conquering team, however as good as all that was, AEK fans watched in disarray as the core of the team was sold off or in many cases let go and not retained which brought much criticism of Dimitris Melissanidis, the AEK front man was under the spot light even as that season came to an end, as questions on whether Christopoulopoulos would remain at the team started to come up after each match.

The saga would go on for some time but when Vranjes, Christodoulopoulos and Araujo were let go, it was a hard pill to swallow, the only irony is none of these players would go into show form like that did with AEK in the winning season.

Instead AEK fans has to watch Lambropoulos line up with journeyman, Uros Cosic. Worse yet, coach, Jimenez would again, leave the club, at the time Marinos Ouzounidis would be brought in and he was a decent acquisition given what he has done with Panathinaikos the previous season. He brought the best out of Victor Klonaridis and to be fair, AEK’s record was not that bad, one acquisition that did do well and covered Araujo’s absence was another Argentine in Ezequiel Ponce who came in and scored 16 goals.

Whilst AEK did well in many games with Ouzounidis, it was the derbies that showed different results to the 2018 season, AEK went the whole season without a win over Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and PAOK. A 4-0 home win over Aris early in the season was as good as it got however as the season went on it would turn ugly, as results failed to come AEK let go of Ouzounidis and brought in Jimenez again to try save the season but that really was to no avail as AEK would be humiliated 4-1 by Olympiakos in Piraeus and 2-0 by Aris in Thessaloniki.

To rub salt into the wound, AEK would lose the Greek Cup final to PAOK for the third season in a row.

AEK would take a huge undertaking for the present season, in at technical director, Nikos Lymberopoulos and head coach, Portuguese, Miguel Cardoso.

The undertaking would be a huge disaster for the club and Melissandis, AEK would play horrible football under his guidance and without results coming in followed by a humiliating home lose to Xanthi in round one, it was enough for Meli to fire Cardoso on the spot, much to every AEK fans relief, Lymberopoulos did the right thing and resigned, as such Nikos Kostenoglou came in and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, even the players were happy and many were quoted about even training sessions feeling normal.

The improvement was evident from the word go, Kostenoglou and the team travelled to Turkey to take on Tranzonspor after a 1-3 loss in Athens, many just wanted a good performance but AEK won 2-0 and were one goal away from knocking the Turks out.

New signing Nelson Oliveira was one of the off seasons highlights as fans get excited to see Melissanidis open the wallet. Sadly, what should have been another great signing, Chico Geraldes from Sporting Lisbon, would not be seen after a red card in the infamous Xanthi match and would go down in the Cardoso disaster.

Whilst AEK were on a better trajectory with Kostenoglou, like Ouzounidis, it would be the big games that would seal his fate, AEK would really come up short against the better teams in the other big four (OSFP, PAOK, PAO, Aris) and after a 1-0 loss in Crete to OFI, Kostenoglou was shown the door and Italian, Massimo Carrera came in with former player, Ilia Ivic as technical director and it’s paid off.

The former Juventus defender has slowly turned the team around and the first thing we have seen is a hugely improved defence, AEK went from conceding 1.3 goals per game to 0.5 – a 62% improvement, even better, AEK won their first derby in almost 2 years when they beat Panathinaikos 1-0.

Other great positives for the club has seen the return from the 2018 winning team of Vranjes and Araujo, the Argentine scored the winner in that win over PAO and Vranjes has recaptured the form of 2017/18.

We have also seen Carrera try different formations to get a winning formula and if Melissanidis can look to make loanees, Vranjes, Araujo and, Damian Szymanski all AEK players by next season, the club will be on a great path to their new stadium, ‘Agia Sofia’ so watch this space and especially if the play offs kick off in May.

Hellas Football