Olympiacos - Galatasaray 51 years later!

When the draw brought Galatasaray in Olympiacos way, the older reminisced. What about? The first European games in Olympiacos history.

When the draw brought Galatasaray in Olympiacos way, the older reminisced. What about? The first European games in Olympiacos history.

It’s been 51 one years since the “reds” of Spanoudakis, Vamvakousis and Filippou for the first time represented Greece in a European competition and faced the Turkish team for the qualifying round of the Championship Cup.

The first European game in the history of Olympiacos was held on November 24 1960 in Istanbul and the Piraeus team was edged 72-41. Olympiacos was defeated again in Piraeus 65-55 and thus was disqualified.

The Turks were later on disqualified to Hapoel Tel Aviv in the first round of the competition, while it’s worth reminding that CSKA Moscow had finally won the trophy edging Riga in Moscow 87-62 and losing in Latvia 61-66.

Olympiacos played its first European game ever at the Palais des Sports of Istanbul in front of 6.000 fans and with Petrovic (Yugoslavia) and Hunda (Romania) officiating the game. The Turks were leading from the beginning and led 18-7 at 10', while there was a 23 point game at half-time in their favor (41-18). Olympiacos got better in the second half but not as good as they should have in order to be saved from a heavy defeat, 72-41

The rosters of the two teams...
GALATASARAY: Ergan 9, Yavuz 10, Hamil 2, Kozloutsar 5, Iktsel, Uner 10, Orzer 7, Ali 16, Dogrul 1, Inal 7, Savvan 5
OLYMPIACOS: G. Spanoudakis 17, Douratsos, Polychroniou, Al. Spanoudakis 11, Vamvakousis 5, Meimaris 4, Fassilis 2, Kaloudis 2

The photos we publish is from the game in Greece, while there is also the front page of the newspaper “Fos” from the first European game of Olympiacos and the paper’s reportage from the second game.