Takis Lemonis – Forever Present

Football in Greece is more than a sport, its often a ritual packed with passion, tension and absolute loyalty. The average Greek fan doesn’t just watch, he lives for his team, establishing a “liturgy” every Sunday, where miracle and disappointment are interchangeable.

He is a believer who worships with the same intensity that he curses, who exalts and shatters without any intermediate tones. And in this charged setting, where the trainer’s spot “burns”, there is one div who has returned again and again, as if called by destiny itself: Takis Lemonis.

He’s the man who has become associated with Olympiacos as few others, not just for the titles won, but, more importantly, for his ability to show up when everyone else is faint-hearted but who then walks off the stage when the job is done.

Hark go back to Karaiskakis Stadium in the early 1980s, when football in Greece was transforming from amateur to the professional.

A young Panagiotis “Takis” Lemonis from the working-class Kolonos district of central Athens had “graduated” from the neighborhood lots to Olympiacos, as one of those talents who, if they had been born in Brazil, would have played for the Seleção. In Greece, however, the destiny of such players is a game of acceptance and rejection are one missed opportunity away.

Lemonis played for Olympiacos for nine seasons (1978 – 1987), scoring 22 goals in 174 appearances, winning five Greek Championships and one Greek Cup, but his real contribution was never statistics. He was a player who “connected” the team without having to do anything spectacular. He became known as “Takaros” to the fans.

Gaining the trust of the players is not just a tactical issue – it’s a matter of human nature. When you’ve played football at such a level you come to this conclusion quite easily

A return as coach

And then, it was time to test himself on the bench. In 2000, he became head coach of Olympiacos after the firing of Yannis Matzourakis. Nobody expected much. No one had yet to understand that this man had a peculiar ability to show up at the right place at the right time.

The results?

He won two consecutive championships (2001, 2002), made history in the Champions League (6-2 over Leverkusen in 2002) and crushed the big rivals: AEK 6-1 and 4-1 against Panathinaikos at the latter’s field. It was the time when the press used the moniker “Sir Takis”. Then he departed.

He returned in 2006. He won the Double (2007), he broke Olympiacos’ Champions League “curse”, winning in Bremen (3-1 against Werder) and Rome (2-1 against Lazio), and sent the team to the “ 16” of the competition. He was then sacked.

He returned in 2017. He took over a team that was faltering, lifted them from 5th place to the top, and in 2018…he left again.

There is no physical explanation other than that Lemonis is acting like some kind of chaotic phenomenon in Greek football, a weather pattern that appears whenever Olympiacos enters a crisis.

When he spoke, the players understood that there was no room for BS. And if there was one rule, it was this: “When you give it your all, people will love you.”

The players understood that, and the fans understood it even more, as they have an extraordinary ability to immediately identify who is really sweating for the jersey and who is just “on tour” on a contract.

A night like this: September 28, 1983, at the packed Athens Olympic Stadium. Olympiacos has just eliminated Ajax and Takis Lemonis (right) celebrates with Petros Michos.

Management and prestige

Olympiacos’ administration has always had one basic rule: Stability means inertia and inertia means death.

This means that being an Olympiacos trainer is something like being the master of a ship that changes owners every three months, but you only remain skipper if the ship is still moving fast and in the right direction. Lemonis was the epitome of a trust-worthy solution – the man who would take over at any critical moment, steady the ship and leave with titles behind.

In 2017, he returned for a fourth tenure as coach of Olympiacos.

What’s left

And now, after football fate has brought him back and forth more times than Jason Bourne and the CIA, you wonder: What is his legacy?

The answer: Takis Lemonis is not a coach. He’s an idea. He is the man who always comes back. You just need to always be there when they need you.