Niche Cache.
...he’s being loaned to Olympiacos for year one of that contract, which is a matter of convenience since Nottm Forest and Olympiacos are both owned by Greek businessman Evangelos Marinakis (Rio Ave in Portugal are also part of the group – a club that coincidentally had Nando Pijnaker on its books for a while there).
This has been a common strategy for Forest. Last season Omar Richards, Giulian Biancone, and Gustavo Scarpa were all on loan at O from NF, although there’s scepticism as to how successful the strategy has been for getting into the Nottm Forest first team long term. The club’s been in a weird place with promotion and financial dramas and trying to stay in the Prem though, so the precedents may not have much relevance.
Next season will be the centenary for Olympiacos Football Club. Their 99th campaign was a disappointment on the domestic front as they only finished third in the league, six points behind winners PAOK, and were bounced in the round of sixteen of the Greek Cup. However they balanced that out with a brilliant run through the Europa Conference League knockouts, beating Ferencváros (2-0 agg), Maccabi Tel Aviv (7-5 agg), Fenerbahçe (3-3 agg, 3-2 on pens), Aston Villa (6-2 agg), and Fiorentina (1-0 aet) to lift the trophy. They also won the UEFA Youth League title.
This season they’ll have automatic Europa League league phase entry (it’s a new format with the league phase replacing the group stage... teams playing eight games prior to knockouts instead of six). They’ll expect to be challenging for trophies on the domestic front too so it’s not out of the question that Stamenic could make it three consecutive league and cup doubles in three different countries. Imagine that.
No Champions League appearances will be added to his resume whilst in Greece but the Europa League will do fine in its place. Greece is ranked slightly higher than Serbia on the UEFA coefficients, having nudged ahead on the latest updates (15th vs 19th) thanks largely to Red Star Belgrade not delivering results on the continental front... so it’s not impossible that they drop into the Europa League after UCL qualifying and could be an opponent for Olympiacos. Right now the only other kiwi bloke in line for continental footy next season is Callum McCowatt (Silkeborg – UEL quals) but at the rate this transfer window is going that’s probably not a final count.
By the way, there have been a few trailblazing NZers who’ve played in the Greek Super League before. Kris Bright made six appearances for Panserraikos. Kosta Barbarouses got 10 for Panathanaikos. And of course NZ/Greek utility Themi Tzimopoulos spent most of his career there, making 233 combined appearances for Akratitos, Giannina, and Levadiakos. Mostly at Giannina. You’ll be interested to know that Themi was still going strong last season at 38 years of age, playing 20 games for Kozani in the second tier. Seems his contract has now wrapped up though... whether that’s the end of his career or not, we shall see.
Up Next: Olympics begin on July 24, gotta think he’ll (Stamenic) be there now that this has all been sorted