The Decline of Greek Football in Europe
The higher they rise, the harder they fall. This is a saying that feels synonymous with the situation Greek football currently finds itself in. At the turn of the millennium, Greek football was at the height of its powers.
The Alpha Ethniki, as it was once known, was ranked 6th place in the UEFA league coefficient ranking meaning that Greece had three teams in the UEFA Champions League group stages.
Clubs from Greece were consistently reaching the knockout stages of major tournaments and the national team did the unthinkable in winning Euro 2004. Journalist and Greek football expert Kostas Lianos talks us through the decline of Greek football.
Fast forward to 2022, and the landscape of Greek football is very different.
As of the 2021/22 season, no side from Greece qualifies automatically for the Champions League group stages or any other European competition, instead having to go through the qualifying process.
No side from Greece has qualified for the champions league in three of the last six editions of Europe's most prestigious competitions with no entrance into the knockout stages since 2013/14.
The coefficient of the Greek Super League has plummeted to as low as 20th in the last few years and the National team will have waited 10 years to reach a major tournament if the Ethniki qualifies for Euro 2024.
But what went wrong with Greek football in this 20-year period where others have been able to stay afloat and even progress to new heights?
The Coefficient Rankings From 2002 - 2022
What is the UEFA Coefficient?
The coefficient is a ranking system devised by Europe's football governing body, UEFA, to determine the ranking places of both clubs in European competitions and domestic leagues to determine how many qualification each league is designated and if they need to go through qualifying phases or automatically reach the group stage proper. The better sides do in Europe, the higher they individually progress in the club rankings, and in tern the more points teams generate, higher their leagues ranking will be.
Ranking 2002/03
As said previously, Greece sat just outside of Europe's top five leagues in 2002/03 in 6th place. A steady decline over the next few seasons followed as Greece dropped to 7th the following season and then 8th in 2004/05 and 2005/06.
Ranking 2006/07
After that, however, Greece’s coefficient ranking would plummet to 15th place in 2006/07 and would never fully recover and in doing so lost the automatic qualification to the Champions League. After five seasons, Greece would claw itself back to 10th place after some strong showings from club sides reaching the knockout stages.
Ranking 2020/21
This was sadly short-lived as a steady decline came again for the Super League. The lowest that the Greek coefficient has fallen was recently in 2020/21, finishing 20th in an all-time low for Greek football.
Former Journalist and Greek football expert Greg Gavalas on a reason for the decline said: "The corruption has hurt the Greek game greatly, prior to this we had at a minimum, 3 very strong teams in Greece, Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and AEK. In this time AEK was relegated to the 3rd division (2012/13) and had to work their way back up."
"Panathinaikos became a shadow of the strong European pedigree team they were for many years, the calibre of team the greens of Athens had is of huge contrast."
"The lack of competition is now catching up to Olympiakos. Whilst Olympiakos has not really made the most of their European runs but for a few, dominating league matches with ease on the weekend is creating a huge gap in competitiveness in Europe and we saw that this season where Olympiakos has now broken a Greek record of 13 matches without a win."
Olympiakos' Gate 7 Ultras with a Tifo against AC Milan in the Europa League (Image taken from Shutterstock)
Olympiakos' Gate 7 Ultras with a Tifo against AC Milan in the Europa League (Image taken from Shutterstock)
Greek Teams Performances
Looking at the start of the last 20 years, it was a common site to see at least two teams from Greece in the UEFA Champions League group stages.
In 2001/02, both Olympiakos and Panathinaikos featured, with the Greens particularly doing well in reaching the quarter-finals of the competitions.
2003/04 would be the peak for Greek representation in Europe's elite competition. Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens all featured in the group stages. 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11 were the last time Greek sides reached the Champions League Round of 16 consecutively with Olympiakos qualifying twice and Panathinaikos once from their respective group.
As the mid-2010s came around and with the further decline of the Greek coefficient, fewer clubs would participate in the UEFA Champions League with Olympiakos being the exception.
They last reached the knockout stages nine years ago where they narrow exited the tournament to Manchester United. The last time the Greek Super League attained an automatic Champions League place came in 2015/16 where once again Olympiakos competed and narrowly finished third on goal difference to Arsenal to enter the Europa League round of 32.
Since that point, the decline has become more evident as out of all the seasons between 2016/17 and 2022/23 Greek sides have reached the Champions League four out of the last seven seasons.
While in the two most recent occasions, Olympiakos was able to finish third and claim Europa League football they only won two games in that time meaning that collectively, in the group stage proper, Greek clubs have only won twice in seven years. Such disappointing campaigns in that time include Olympiakos in 2017/18 losing five and drawing one and AEK Athens in 2018/19 losing all six matches, the worst performance of any Greek team in UEFA competitions to date.
This has also correlated with Greek clubs no longer having automatic qualification to European competitions and being forced to play in the qualifiers which they have also underperformed in.
PAOK Fans in a Greek Cup match against Olympiakos (Image taken from Wikimedia Commons )
PAOK Fans in a Greek Cup match against Olympiakos (Image taken from Wikimedia Commons )
All Images & Logos taken from VectorPortal
All Images & Logos taken from VectorPortal
Comparison with Scotland
When comparing how other leagues outside of Europe's top 5 have performed over the last two decades, Scotland is one that is not only comparable to Greece in a dramatic decline but also one that could be seen as an example of how to come back from such a huge fall.
A comparison of Scotland's coefficient ranking next to Greeces from 2002/03 to 2022/23 at the time of writing there are some very interesting parallels. Scotland too started in a reasonably decent position in 2002/03 in 9th place. After a consistent run of finishing no lower then 11th in the 2000s, the decade ended with the beginning of the decline for Scottish football.
At first it was gradual with Scotland hovering a between 13th and 18th before a sharp drop to 24th in 2012/13. It would only get worse from there with the 2010s being a real low point for the Scottish coefficient dropping to an all time low of 26th in 2017/18, something that even Greek football have not yet managed to sink to.
This can be attributed to a lack of representation in Europe with the liquidation of Rangers and having to restart in their lower leagues, with Celtic, who were unchallenged in the Scottish Premiership, normally being the sole representative and having at times to carry the points intake for the whole country.
This is another good comparison to Greece, with Panathinaikos financial decline in the early 2010s and being banned from Europe due to mismanagement. AEK too who were relegated to the lower leagues, like Rangers in Scotland, and had to spend a number of years returning to the top of Greek football.
This left Olympiakos as the only strong enough representative for Greece. Unlike Greek football however with the Scottish teams have been able to find more recent success.
With Rangers back to full strength in the last few seasons this has not only given a challenge for Celtic in the domestic front but both teams have consistently reached the group stages of Europe's major competitions though the qualifiers and gained vital coefficient points.
What has also helped is their performances once they reached the group stages with Rangers going all the way to the Europa League final in 2021/22, narrowly losing on penalties to Frankfurt. Even this season despite both sides being eliminated from the Champions League group stages, scotland had two representatives in the competition, something that Greece has not seen for many years.
All of this recent success saw Scotland's coefficient ranking sky rocket from 26th in 2017/18 to an all time high at the time of writing to 8th in the last five seasons. This improvement from Scotland shows that it is possible for Greece to come back from their decline too.
Journalist and Scottish football expert Hamish Carton on Scottish teams recent improvements said: "The improvement (and achievements) of Rangers have helped Scottish football to climb the coefficient standings. Also only having four teams helped as overall total was divided by 4 rather than 5. Having early qualifiers allowed the likes of Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen to chalk up points early in the season against lesser teams."
Teams other then just Olympiakos need to have better planning for European qualifiers, better management of the squad, as well as taking the qualifiers seriously so that multiple sides from Greece can be present in Europe and this will increase the chance of coefficient improvement.
Worst Performances
Other comparisons that can be made are how both sides from Greece and Scotland are able to compete in at the top level in Europe. Despite dominating their leagues and rarely struggling against weaker opposition domestically this does not translate well when facing even half decent sides in UEFA competition which is why you have seen sides from both countries struggle internationally as well. Examples range from:
Olympiakos finishing bottom of their Champions League group with just one point in 2017/18.
AEK Athens losing every single group game in 2018/19.
Celtic finishing 4th in their Champions League group in 2022/23.
Rangers Also finishing 4th in their Champions League group in 2022/23.
At the time of writing Rangers are now statistically the worst Champions League team in the history of the group stages. This comes mere months after they made the Europa League final.
When asked how sustainable this model for Scottish football was, Hamish Carton said: "It gets harder now as we don’t have these early qualifiers and now have five teams in Europe per season. While good for the country’s profile, Celtic and Rangers haven’t been able to get the same number of points in the Champions League as they could in the Europa League, and Hearts have struggled against better opposition in the Conference League. It seems likely that we’ll fall in the standings a little when the seasons start to fall off the five year scale."
Carton did go on to say that the new Swiss model that will be introduced for the UEFA Champions League could be benefit Scottish teams in numerous ways.
Kostas Lianos thinks differently, saying it would be detrimental to Greek football if UEFA was to introduce a historic coefficient to the new Champions League format. Lianos said: "It would be disastrous for Greek football because then you would see teams that happened to be great at some point in their history and being picked in the Champions League out of privilege rather than merit."
Looking to the Future for Greek football
Now that there is no Greek representative in Europe there will be no teams to get any coefficient points which means the Greek ranking will inevitably decline more over this season. However, there are always glimmers of hope for the near future at least. Having had a few decent enough performances in the 2021/22 season in Europe from Olympiakos and especially PAOK, Greece have five European places for next season, four in the league and one for the winner of the Greek Cup.
The improvement of Panathinaikos domestically, who are now favourites for the title along with AEK Athens new stadium and improved form means that teams, other then Olympiakos, can build not only to dethrone the current Greek champions but to also improve further for the European qualifiers next season.
A competitive league is a healthy league, and with the improvement of other big teams,and if they learn from past mistakes, Greece will have stronger representatives in Europe which gives them a greater chance of gaining more points, and qualifying for more competitions and in doing so rise up the UEFA Rankings, just as Scotland have shown that it is possible to do.
Greg Gavalas said: "I still think Greek clubs are putting too much focus on foreigners who are not that good and leaving Greek talent to waste. Greek players try harder and show more heart, they have talent too which we see when they go abroad. In years gone by, we saw Greek players excel when given a chance, we need this philosophy to come back. This focus on recruiting mainly foreign players is not good for the league, especially now days when many of the teams outside of the top 6 are player poor football which is well below European level."
Kostas Lianos also highlighted what Greece needs to do to improve at club and international level said: "Better transfers, better investment, more value for money, avoid big name signings just for the sake of it. More investment in young talent and local talent who want to succeed, who support that team who are fans as well. "
Lianos also spoke about the need for better backroom staff and scouts who actually know about football, as well as introducing more stats-based people into the Greek game and not just friends of the owner of people who the owner owes a favour which is common.
Kostas Lianos also said: "Greek football is flooded by people who have no idea how football works, who have never laced up a pair of football boots whereas people who that do know and have served football are basically being ousted like Theodoros Zagorakis who barely lasted as the Greek FA President. People who know about football and care are being ousted by people who don't know and don't care about Greek football."
In the longer term as was highlighted by both Kostas Lianos and Greg Gavalas, Greek clubs must also improve their youth output and focus on bringing through young talents who not only wish to play for their boyhood clubs. This will only further improve the health of the league and the Greek national team but it is up to clubs, the Super League and the Greek football federation to implement the changes that football in the country so evidently needs to improve and succeed.
Image Credit: UEFA Logo Image taken from Vectorportal
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