Evangelos Marinakis is a gambler. The owner of Olympiakos never hesitated to put his hand deep in his pocket, to make risky moves in the football market, to use money, or who knows what to attract big but worn-out stars to Piraeus. That’s exactly what the first man did in the summer of 2022. Until he frantically bought players for his Nottingham Forest (he spent almost 200,000,000 euros and broke the record for the number of players brought in in one transfer window), he found ways to bring Marcelo, James Rodríguez, Sime Vrsaljko to his favorite club from Giorgos Karaiskakis Stadium – all for free.One of the most pompous transfer windows in Olympiacos’ history exploded, with over 25,000 people waiting for Marcelo at Karaiskakis and falling into a trance as the legendary Brazilian fired selfies. There have been more generous transition periods than the one mentioned, but rarely higher expectations. They additionally signed Cedric Bakambu, Diadie Samassékou, and Pep Biel for the red and whites, on whom 6,000,000 euros were spent. From most, Olympiakos did not get much, from some – almost nothing. None of the aforementioned is currently in the club (some on loan) that will play the final of the UEFA Conference League on May 29, just in the neighborhood, at AEK’s Hagia Sophia.The Piraeus giants did not reach the first European final in the club’s history because a solid team core was created in the summer of 2022. That was not the case. Olympiakos is in the fight for the European C production trophy thanks to the ingenious moves the club made in the last June and January market.##NAJAVA_MECA_8095288##The group of the team that destroyed this season’s rather powerful Aston Villa in the two-leg semi-final of the Conference League, ending with last night’s rematch, was made up of boys who arrived in the last two transfer periods. David Carmo, Francisco Ortega, Santiago Hezze, Chiquinho, Daniel Podence (returned to Piraeus from Wolves in the summer of 2023), Vicente Iborra and the first scorer of European competitions this season – Ayoub El Kaabi!Nine months ago, a 30-year-old Moroccan entered the Karaiskakis through the back door. He was not welcomed by tens of thousands of people, there was no party, excessive expectations. If they had known what kind of player was coming, the whole of Piraeus would have been painted red on that August 6! El Kaabi arrived as a free agent from Qatar’s Al Sadd, he did not have a single ‘top five league’ club in his football resume, but only Moroccan, Chinese Hebei and Turkish Hatay, from which he left after the terrible earthquake in which his teammate Christian Atsu died, and the club’s headquarters was completely destroyed. destroyed, by force of circumstances he had to move on… To a new environment, to the Middle East. And Europeans do not care too much about Asian football, nor do they appreciate its quality, El Kaabi’s six goals in 13 games were not God knows what kind of reference for what will happen this season. The guy who entered his fourth decade of life delivered 32 goals (and two assists) in 46 matches for Olympiakos!El Kaabi’s explosion gains weight only when we scratch beneath the surface, when we return to the first decade of the 21st century and teleport to Casablanca, Ayoub’s hometown. El Kaabi grew up in the disreputable neighborhood of Derb Mila and in order to help his family, which was suffering from poverty, he left school at the age of 15 and apprenticed himself to a carpenter. He disclosed this himself in an interview with the Moroccan media.UECL: African El Kaabi destroys Champions League bound Aston VillaFootball on the street was an integral part of childhood and growing up, only El Kaabi stood out. Ball listened to him more than other kids and he ended up in a small club from the other side of town. Within a few months, the local Racing scouts spotted him, recognized his technical and physical qualities, and as a 21-year-old, he received a professional contract. It was in 2014. He spent two years on loan, he played in the third league… first as a left back, then he was transferred to the position of holding midfielder, and then in Racing there was a coach who recognized his power in the penalty area, his ‘nose’ for goal. El Kaabi became a striker, helped Racing to enter the first league and with 25 goals earned a transfer to a step higher, to the ranks of Berkane for a whopping 1,880,000 euros. A season later, he was already bought by the Chinese Hebei for 6,000,000 euros, and that was the second and for now the last compensation that a club paid for the Moroccan international.🥇 El Kaabi in the right place at the right time ⚽️@Heineken || #UECLGOTW || #UECL pic.twitter.com/GtMSjMFaGf— UEFA Europa Conference League (@europacnfleague) May 10, 2024 In parallel with his club career, he developed his national team career. He made his debut for Morocco in mid-January 2018 at the African Nations Championship (not the same as the African Nations Cup), a competition in which only players from domestic clubs compete for national teams. He scored twice on his debut, led Morocco to the final with eight goals, and in the fight for the trophy, he scored another in the victory over Nigeria and earned the title of top scorer. He bought himself a place at the World Cup in Russia, played against Iran and Portugal, but Morocco had nothing to look for in the group in which Spain was placed. From October 2018 to November 2020, he was not called up for the national team. His national team career was revived by Vahid Halilhodžić, El Kaabi shone in the qualifiers for the World Cup in Qatar, he profiled himself as one of the key players for the Atlas Lions’ and would certainly have gone to the tournament in Doha if the Association had not fired the Bosnian expert two months before the World Cup and replaced him with Walid Regragui. That move, in truth, turned out to be great since Regragui led the Moroccans to the semi-finals, the best placement of an African team in the history of the World Cups.Since the start of the most brilliant season of his career, El Kaabi has been playing for Morocco again, from July he will attack again with the national team to qualify for the World Cup, but currently his focus is on the UEFA Conference League, which he aimed for with Olympiakos.🚨 Ayoub El Kaabi has become the first African player in history to score 14 goals during a season in Europe. 🤯The Moroccan knows where the onion bag is. 🇲🇦✨ pic.twitter.com/3BeClU1TAq— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) May 9, 2024 The prolific goalscorer almost single-handedly eliminated Aston Villa in the semi-finals, scoring five of six goals in the two legs. Six years ago when he played a brilliant African Nations Championship, the then director of the competition, Adel Chedli (a former Tunisian international), compared him to Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o and Florent Malouda. Of course, El Kaabi is far from that level, but the player really has bits of their characteristics – Drogba’s stamina, Samuel’s explosiveness and finishing, Florant’s left foot.In the history of European competitions, only El Kaabi and Falcao scored five goals each in the semi-final double leg. El Tigre did it in 2012 against Villarreal playing for Porto, and Cristiano Ronaldo (quarter-final against Bayern 2017), Erling Haaland and Josip Ilicic scored five goals each in the round of 16, while Leo Messi can also boast of six goals scored in two-legged European competitions. In 2012, he delivered six balls into Leverkusen’s net, also at the start of the knockout phase.With 15 goals in Europe (10 in the Europa League, three in the Conference League and two at the start of the season in Europa League qualifiers), El Kaabi equaled the achievements of Kostas Mitroglou and Predrag Djordjevic on the all-time list of Olympiakos scorers in Europe. He is only looking behind his teammate Youssef El-Arabi who collected 20 in 57 games.Piraeus didn’t need Marcelo and James… Piraeus was waiting for a carpenter from Casablanca.##NAJAVA_MECA_8097021##
