![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Karaiskakis_Stadium_Piraeus_Olympiacos-Arsenal.jpg/640px-Karaiskakis_Stadium_Piraeus_Olympiacos-Arsenal.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Olympiacos F.C. in European football
Greek club in European football / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Olympiacos F.C. in European football?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Olympiacos F.C. is a Greek football club based in Piraeus. It is the most successful football club in Greece and has a long presence in UEFA competitions, making its debut on 13 September 1959, against AC Milan for the 1959–60 European Cup, the first Greek club to compete in European competition.[1] Also winning the UEFA Europa Conference League in the 2023-24 season against Fiorentina and becoming the first Greek club to win a European competition.
![]() Olympiacos home ground Karaiskakis Stadium in a 2009–10 UEFA Champions League 1–0 win against Arsenal | |
Club | Olympiacos |
---|---|
Most appearances | Predrag Đorđević (83) |
Top scorer | Youssef El-Arabi (20) |
First entry | 1959–60 European Cup |
Latest entry | 2024–25 UEFA Europa League |
Titles | |
Europa Conference League | 1 |
Olympiacos is the most successful Greek football club in European competitions, being the only club from Greece in history to have won a major European trophy; they won the UEFA Europa Conference League in 2023–24, sealing their title by winning against Italian side Fiorentina 1–0 in the Final. With their 2024 triumph, they became the first club outside the biggest four European leagues (Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga) to win a UEFA competition since 2011.
They are the highest ranked Greek club in the UEFA rankings, occupying the 36th place in the ten-year ranking, and the 43rd in the five-year ranking as of 2024. They are also the Greek club with the most wins in all European competitions, leading also the table with the most home and away wins,[2][3] and the Greek team with the most games played in European level, celebrating their 200th match on 23 February 2010, against Bordeaux in the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League first knockout round. Olympiacos also holds the all-time record attendance for a Greek club of 75,263 in a 1982–83 European Cup match against Hamburg at the Athens Olympic Stadium.[4] They are one of the founding members of the European Club Association.
Besides their 2023–24 UEFA Conference League triumph, other major European successes include their advance to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League in 1998–99, where they lost a semi-final spot in the dying minutes to Juventus and their advance to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1992–93, losing to Atlético Madrid.
Olympiacos has eliminated (in either finals, knockout matches or group stages) clubs like Milan, Arsenal, Ajax, Benfica, Porto, Borussia Dortmund, Lazio, Celtic, PSV Eindhoven, Aston Villa, Werder Bremen, Fiorentina, Anderlecht, Monaco, Deportivo La Coruña, Hertha BSC, Cagliari and Standard Liège among many others. They have spent most of their European history in the UEFA Champions League, where they are widely known for being a strong home side, having run some long-standing sequences, such as the 15 straight UEFA Champions League unbeaten home matches since their debut in the tournament under its new format, when Manchester United stopped their record in their fifth consecutive participation, and their 15 wins in 19 UEFA Champions League home matches between 2009–10 and 2014–15. They have a vast record of home wins over traditional European powerhouses and UEFA Champions League winners like Real Madrid, Milan, Liverpool, Manchester United, Ajax, Juventus, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Benfica, Porto, PSV Eindhoven, Celtic, Aston Villa, Olympique Lyonnais, Olympique Marseille, Atlético Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, Leverkusen and Red Star Belgrade among many others. From 2007 to 2016, Olympiacos participated seven times in the UEFA Champions League Group Stage, and gathered at least 9 points in every one of those seven groups, qualifying three times for the knockout stage (Last 16) of the competition (2007–08, 2009–10, 2013–14).
Olympiacos has also won the Balkans Cup in 1963, at a time when the competition was considered the second most important in the region after the European Cup,[5] becoming the first ever Greek club to win an international competition.
Another major European success was achieved by Olympiacos U-19 team in 2023–24 season. One month before Olympiacos won the 2023–24 UEFA Conference League, Olympiacos U-19 team won the UEFA Youth League against AC Milan in the final, eliminating Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and Nantes in the process.[6] Thus, Olympiacos won two out of four official UEFA club competitions of the 2023–24 season and became the only club in European football to have won two UEFA competitions at the same season.[7][8]