Greek midfielder Ioannis Papadopoulos talked about Temur Ketbsaia’s achievements as a coach to sportday.gr. Papadopoulos is 22-year-old soccer player and played for “Olimpiakos” Piraeus for three years and now joined PAOK. He is a leader of Youth National Team and played only one match for National Team.

 “The only person whom I like as a head coach of “Olimpiakos” is Temur Ketsbaia. He gave us not only self-confidence, we knew how to play and what to play on the field. We did not lose even one match while his coaching. We went through the sub-group stage of Champions League convincingly, but he was fired… he was reprimanded why the team was playing defensive football in interior matches. But the team was another under Georgian specialist, we were feeling power of the coach. A lot of people could not forget that he was playing for AEK and it was one of the reasons why he was released from the team.  Ketsbaia used to call up 18-year-old Kiriakos Papadopoulos who plays for “Schalke” now. Ketsbaia discovered him. To my mind if Ketsbaia were not fired “Olimpiakos” would become the champion of Greece in 2010. In a word the only person who suitably trained the club in recent years is Ketsbaia”- stated Ioannis Papadopoulos.

Ketsbaia was appointed as a head coach of “Olimpiakos” in summer, 2009 and had quite good results but at the beginning of September he was fired.

 Last year “World Sport” spread words of the head of “Olimpiakos” kokkalis where he was saying that he was very sorry for firing Ketsbaia, as he said he made a big mistake due to firing him. After Ketsbaia, four specialists worked for “Olimpiakos”: Bozidar Bandovic, Zico, Ernesto Valverde, Evald Lienen

Ilia Nanobashvili