Kostas Fortounis: The Captain Who Was Blessed

12:03 1/4/2025 - Πηγή: Τα Νεα

There’s no clear answer in cases like this. You just can’t know whether you chose football, or it chose you. In which case, you simply went along with it. So don’t seek answers—leave it be. Where it belongs: which is in the history books. For they will forever note that, in the early hours of 30 May 2024, the Europa

Conference League trophy was held aloft first for Olympiacos by…

Yes, the Number 7—the player who, more than any other, has defined the Marinakis era at the Piraeus Club, who has played in no fewer than 343 games for Olympiacos. With 106 assists and 94 goals over a peerless 200-game stretch, whose creativity and execution is beyond compare. The history of Olympiacos has its fair share of heroes and heroics, but nothing like this. With six championships and two Cups won. Inspired by the players of the past who’d made Sundays so special and by tears. With two operations, one on each knee; by two kids, for whose sake he kept on playing when most people thought he didn’t have the mental strength to deal with a second major injury (a torn ACL). But above all else, he is… blessed. Chosen. Chosen for an honor that befell none of the other great captains in the history of the Club. And no one can deny that Olympiacos has been fortunate to have many greats wear the armband with pride. Players who came to symbolize their eras. Who became icons…

That kid

Let’s go back in time to that afternoon in Rentis when the 12-year-old from Kalabaka thought he was dreaming as he walked through the gate into the Olympiacos training center for the first time. Processing every piece of information, every image, with the thirst only a child can know. He was 350 kilometers from home and would be staying with his grandparents in the nearby Tavros district for the next year, at least. He’d have to embrace an entirely new life for football’s sake, and at a crucial age. Still, he didn’t need to think it over. He knew this was his destiny: Football and Olympiacos. It was enough that he’d get to play football for the team he loved, and when the time came for him to move into the Rentis center the following year, to live there all alone, he did not hesitate.

Far from it. He still tells the tale of how he’d sneak onto the ‘good’ pitch to steal a look at Predrag Djordjevic and the other stars of the seniors’ side train. When, many years later, in 2018, Fortounis told Yaya Touré—who had just returned for what turned out to be a brief second stint at the Club—that they had first met in 2005,  and that he was the blond-haired kid who never missed a chance to sneak onto the sidelines of the main field to watch the first team practice, the Ivorian international didn’t believe him.

Karma

“My parents would come down every weekend, and there were a lot of team people there to help you. But, in reality, you were alone. So I had to learn responsibility. I learned what it takes to care for yourself and it was very good for me,” he said years later about this singular experience. But his own history with the Legend would be anything but simple. He would have to leave Olympiacos once, and risk his career coming off the rails, before returning after many years—and a circuitous journey with stops in Trikala, Asteras Tripoli and Kaiserslautern—to prove himself once and for all. Of course, Evangelos Marinakis would also have to arrange for Kostas Fortounis’ return to Olympiacos, which was one of the first things he set in motion when he took over as president; like he was fulfilment a prophesy of sorts. And there’s proof.

At his attendance during the annual New Year’s cake-cutting ceremony for the youth academy in January 2011, he shares his dreams for Olympiacos for the first time. In the heart of the Rentis complex he mentions Kostas Fortounis by name, and the prospect of a return of a player who grew up with the Club, giving him a fair chance to prove himself, back home.

With Marinakis’ seal of approval

Fortounis— “Fortou” to the fans — had left in 2008 and returned in the summer of 2014. This time, he’d stay for a decade and come to symbolize an era.

“A lot of clubs wanted me. Zisis Vryzas was calling every day for PAOK. He wanted to make me their No 10. And I was talking to Giannis Anastasiou, the coach at Panathinaikos, and the Club’s owner, too. But I wanted to return to Olympiacos. I wanted to play for Olympiacos. I’d dreamed of it since I was a kid. I always felt I’d come back one day, or just really wanted to return ever since I’d packed up my things and left Rendis. Leaving like that really hurt. So, when my manager told me Mr. Marinakis had called about Olympiacos, I just forgot about the other offers. You could say that’s when it all started,” he would say many years later in an interview with “TA NEA”.

Inspired by the players of the past who made Sundays special, Kostas Fortounis became the symbol of the era.

The No 12 Jersey

Back then, manager Michel had a fine player, Chori Domínguez, who brought the same set of skills to the pitch as Fortounis in the No 10 spot. He also had David Fuster, another superb playmaker, in reserve for when the Argentinian couldn’t play. In the meantime, the Olympiacos team had reached the Champions League knockout stages in 2014 and won the national championship; they were playing great football. So, integrating Fortou into the team wasn’t going to be straightforward. And, as was his way, the Spanish coach took his time finding room in the equation for Fortounis. He didn’t include him in the European squad and only used him for Cup games in Greece – even though he kept on scoring! Who knows what would have happened next if Vitor Pereira hadn’t joined Olympiacos in January 2015. He put Fortou back on the rails once and for all. Everything changed with the Portuguese coach on the bench. The Greek international became the best “No 12” of the year. He kept coming off the bench and scoring goals (7) and making assists (4). The Double came in 2015.

An attacking midfielder with the national squad

What followed would prove to be… magical: 21 goals and 17 assists in 39 appearances in the 2015-16 season under coach Marco Silva, which elevated Fortou to an on-field leader. Fortounis scored from a direct corner at the Emirates Stadium and dished out two assists to outgun Arsenal (3-2). He had a goal or an assist to his credit in 21 out of 27 Super League games, and it would come out years later that Pep Guardiola had a full file on the Greek player compiled for Bayern during his final year in Munich. Years later, as the Manchester City coach before a Champions League match at home against Olympiacos, he’d ask “Where’s Fortounis?” at the press conference. In the summer of 2019, Mario Husillos rolled out the red carpet for him in London, offering West Ham’s No 7 and 12 million euros to the Piraeus club in exchange for their captain. Fortou finished that season, Pedro Martins’ first, with 17 goals and 16 assists, having eliminating Milan no less from the Europa League in that unforgettable 3-1 win.

96 goals and 106 assists: Proof of a football genius whose movement was like an artist’s strokes on the grass of Karaiskakis Stadium.

Genius

He does things that no other Olympiacos attacking midfielder has ever done: it’s like he cast a spell on the numbers: how else can you explain his incredible 94 goals and 106 assists? Confirmation of the genius of a footballer who can do every job from the centerline up and do it flawlessly. Serving as the playmaker, going one-on-one to unbalance the opposition defense, cutting the other team off in mid-flow with one of those trademark through balls that land at the center forward’s feet mid-stride, and scoring from a set piece or on the move. And if his stats with Olympiacos seem stellar, imagine what they would have been like if two separate injuries (a torn ACL in each knee) in the pre-season training for the 2019 and 2021 seasons hadn’t put him out of action for the better part of two years? That he could come back from such a serious operation not once but twice was anything but a foregone conclusion. There aren’t a lot of players out there who return from ACL operations on both knees! And I’m not there are any who have done so at the level of Kostas Fortounis.

A work of art

Because you can’t do what he did last year, in a season that ended with victory in the UEFA Conference League, unless you’re playing at the most elite level: 49 appearances, 11 goals, 19 assistsv of which five goals and 10 assists were scored in Olympiacos’ European progression through to its final vindication in Nea Filadelfeia. The magical goal against West Ham, the perfect performance in the historic 6-1 win against Maccabi, the way he danced round Fenerbahce in Neo Faliro, and how he switched to a more defensive role against Aston Villa and, of course, in the final against Fiorentina. And who can forget the tears in his eyes as he hoisted the Cup high? Was it the final stop in his Olympiacos journey, since he’s playing in Saudi Arabia this year? Who knows? “The Club’s my home,” he always says. And he always uses “we” when he talks about Olympiacos…