The 1985–86 season was the 62nd season in the existence of AEK Athens F.C. and the 27th consecutive season in the top flight of Greek football. They competed in the Alpha Ethniki, the Greek Cup and the UEFA Cup. The season began on 8 September 1985 and finished on 23 June 1986.
Kits
Overview
In the summer of 1985, AEK were forced to play their home games at the Athens Olympic Stadium, due to construction works at AEK Stadium. Since both Olympiacos and Panathinaikos used the same stadium as their home ground at the time, resulted in the conduction of league games on Saturday, so that all 3 teams could be served simultaneously. Antonis Georgiadis left the club to take over the bench of Olympiacos. For his replacement Andreas Zafiropoulos hired Jacek Gmoch, who had won the domestic double in 1984 and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup with Panathinaikos. Christos Ardizoglou left the club and returned to Apollon Athens after a failed attempt to transfer to Olympiacos.
In the UEFA Cup, AEK had a very difficult draw, as they faced the mighty Real Madrid. In the first match at home the yellow-blacks played a good game with its main elements being passion, organization and the creation of scoring opportunities. AEK eventually reached a historic 1–0 win thanks to the goal of Pavlos Papaioannou and the faint of Márton Esterházy over the ball that confused the goalkeeper. In the second leg, AEK lined up with an offensive orientation, but they were overwhelmed by the Real Madrid and were easily defeated by 5–0. Thus, the yellow-blacks were left out of the competitions and the merengues went in their eventual conquest of the title.
In first round of the Cup, AEK faced Ilioupoli in a single match at home, where they easily passed through with an easy 10–0 win. Afterwards, they eliminated Kallithea, with the qualification being decided in the second leg with a 0–1 away win that came after the 1–1 at home. At the round of 16, the yellow-blacks came across Chalkida, who they easily eliminated with wins at both legs. Their opponent in the quarter-finals was Panachaiki and after a 3–0 in the first leg, the rematch at Patras was purely procedural, which ended in a 1–0 defeat. Thus, AEK reached the semi-finals facing Panathinaikos. In the first match at the Olympic Stadium, with the yellow-blacks as hosts, depite AEK taking the 2–0 lead, Panathinaikos managed to escape with a 2–2. In the rematch at the same stadium the yellow-blacks once again took the lead making the 0–1, but again the greens responded with two goals and turned the match around, taking the qualification to the final, which they eventually won.
AEK started the league with two victories against PAOK and Aris, but the continuation was not proportional. In December, both Vangelis Vlachos and Lysandros Georgamlis left for Panathinaikos. Their departure greatly affected the team's later performance in the league. However, at the same time, they were strengthened with the addition of Greek-Australian expatriate, Jim Patikas. The whole season was marked by the successive ups and downs in the performance of the team, which could not acquire duration and rhythm. The club presented two different faces in their struggles at home and away matches. In home matches they finished the season undefeated, but with 7 draws that knocked them out of the title race. In the away matches they gathered 7 defeats in 15 games. The team finished at the third place where they were tied with Iraklis, 7 points behind the champion Panathinaikos and 2 behind the second OFI.
However, the whole season was accompanied by the court thriller that was reserved for the end. AEK were playing in the penultimate matchday at Serres against Panserraikos. ΑΕΚ wanted the victory to stay on track for a ticket to the next season's UEFA Cup. At the eve of the match on April 19 the general manager of AEK, Giannis Chrysovitsianos, was arrested on the accusation of attempted bribery to the players of Panserraikos, Michalis Galatidis, Giorgos Sfakianakis and Giannis Antoniadis to underperform in the match, through their former player, Giorgos Rigas. The match took place normally and Panserraikos won by 2–0, a result that eventually did not help them avoid relegation. That resulted in the league standings not being secured, until the case was finalized. That eventually happened at mid-June, with AEK being punished with the deduction of 3 points from the next season's championship. Thus, the organizing authority decided to conduct a third place play-off match between AEK and Iraklis. Iraklis considered the punishment of AEK from the following season to be a scandal, as well as the acquittal of OFI for the double doping of their player, Alejandro Hisis.
The play-off match was set for June 23 at Volos. The delay of the conduction of the match was such that Esterházy competed with his national team at the 1986 FIFA World Cup and returned to play with AEK. Meanwhile, Gmoch not having any offers by the management for his contract renewal, left the club with his assistant, Nikos Christidis sitting on the bench for the match. Iraklis, who disagreed with the conduction of the match, threatened not to show up. Nevertheless, they were forced to show up in fear of punishment and thus they tried to make a parody of the match. The squad of Iraklis was consisted of 10 players, since according to their management, the rest of the players were on vacation. At the 53rd minute while the match was at 0–0, Iraklis were left with 6 players after Zifkas and Karaiskos were sent off, while Santexis and Adamou left the pitch injured. Thus, according to the regulation, the referee interrupted the match and AEK were awarded the match with a 2–0 win, securing a European ticket.
The club's top scorer in the league was Håkan Sandberg with 12 goals and in total was Márton Esterházy with 17. One of the few positives of that season was that AEK achieved an average league ticket record in their history with 31,254 tickets per game.
Management team
Players
Squad information
NOTE: The players are the ones that have been announced by the AEK Athens' press release. No edits should be made unless a player arrival or exit is announced. Updated 23 June 1986, 23:59 UTC+3.
PlayerNat.Position(s)Date of birth (Age)SignedPrevious clubTransfer feeContract until Goalkeepers Spyros Ikonomopoulos GK 1979 AEK Athens U20 — 1989 Theologis Papadopoulos GK 1984 AEL ₯9,000,000 1989 Defenders Makis Chatzis RB / LB 1984 Apollon Athens ₯6,750,000 1989 Panagiotis Stylianopoulos RB / LB / DM 1978 AEK Athens U20 — 1986 Ilias Armodoros LB / DM 1985 Ethnikos Piraeus Free 1990 Takis Karagiozopoulos CB / DM / ST 1981 Veria ₯8,000,000 1991 Polyvios Chatzopoulos CB / DM 1985 Panionios ₯10,400,000 1990 Stelios Manolas CB / RB 1980 AEK Athens U20 — 1989 Stefanos Porfyris CB 1985 AEK Athens U20 — 1990 Midfielders Pavlos Dimitriou AM / LM / LB 1985 Panserraikos ₯11,000,000 1990 Dinos Ballis AM / CM / DM / SS / ST / CB 1981 Aris ₯17,000,000 1986 Pavlos Papaioannou DM / RB / LB / RM 1983 Rodos ₯10,000,000 1988 Nikos Pias CM / DM 1984 Rodos ₯1,350,000 1989 Babis Akrivopoulos AM / RM / LM / SS / ST 1983 Veria ₯8,400,000 1988 Jim Patikas RM / LM / RW / LW / SS 1985 Sydney Croatia ₯5,000,000 1988 Dimitris Stafylidis CM 1985 AEK Athens U20 — 1988 Forwards Thomas Mavros (Captain) ST / LW 1976 Panionios ₯10,000,000 1987 Márton Esterházy SS / AM / ST / RW / LW / RM / LM 1984 Honvéd ₯22,950,000 1986 Håkan Sandberg ST 1984 IFK Göteborg ₯8,000,000 1988 Andreas Voitsidis ST / RW / LW 1984 Kastoria ₯2,400,000 1989 Giannis Dintsikos ST / SS / RW / LW / AM 1981 Kastoria ₯20,000,000 1991 Georgios Christodoulou ST / SS / LW 1985 Akratitos Free 1988 Left during Winter Transfer Window Christos Arvanitis GK 1982 Olympiacos ₯7,000,000 1986 Lysandros Georgamlis (Vice-captain) RB / CB / DM / LB 1980 AEK Athens U20 — 1985 Vangelis Vlachos AM / CM / RM / LM 1979 AEK Athens U20 — 1989 Michalis Pytharoulis ST 1984 A.O. Agios Nikolaos Free 1989
Transfers
In
Summer
PlayerFromFeeDateContract UntilSource KorinthosLoan return30 June 1987 Panionios₯10,400,00030 June 1990 AEK Athens U20Promotion30 June 1990 Ethnikos PiraeusFree transfer30 June 1990 AEK Athens U20Promotion30 June 1988 AkratitosFree transfer30 June 1988
Winter
PlayerFromFeeDateContract UntilSource Sydney Croatia₯5,000,00030 November 1988 Panserraikos₯11,000,00030 November 1990
Out
Summer
PlayerToFeeDateSource EgaleoContract termination Apollon AthensContract termination
Winter
PlayerToFeeDateSource Olympiacos₯6,000,000 PanathinaikosEnd of contract Panathinaikos₯16,000,000
Loan out
Summer
PlayerToFeeDateUntilOption to buySource IonikosFree30 June 1987 AcharnaikosFree30 June 1986
Winter
PlayerToFeeDateUntilOption to buySource Vyzas MegaraFree30 November 1986
Notes
a. AEK gave as an exchange from their reserve team Kagarakis, Keramiotis and Voulgarelis, plus Dimas and Aravidis as a loan.
b. Plus the incomes from a friendly match between the clubs in the following summer.
c. AEK received the amount of ₯9,100,000 for the player's release.
Contract renewals
PlayerDateFormer Exp. DateNew Exp. DateSource 30 June 198630 June 1991 30 June 198630 June 1988 30 June 198630 June 1991
Overall transfer activity
Expenditure Summer: ₯10,400,000
Winter: ₯16,000,000
Total: ₯26,400,000
Income Summer: ₯0
Winter: ₯22,000,000
Total: ₯22,000,000
Net Totals Summer: ₯10,400,000
Winter: ₯6,000,000
Total: ₯4,400,000
Pre-season and friendlies
Competitions
Overall record
Alpha Ethniki
League table
Results summary
Results by Matchday
Matches
Third place play-off
Greek Cup
Matches
Round of 32
Round of 16
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
UEFA Cup
First round
Statistics
Squad statistics
! colspan="11" style="background:#FFDE00; text-align:center" | Goalkeepers
! colspan="11" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Defenders
! colspan="11" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Midfielders
! colspan="11" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Forwards
! colspan="11" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Left during Winter Transfer Window
Goalscorers
The list is sorted by competition order when total goals are equal, then by position and then alphabetically by surname. RankPlayerAlpha EthnikiGreek CupUEFA CupTotal111 6 017212 4 0163 5 3 084 4 2 065 4 0 04 3 1 047 1 2 038 0 2 029 1 0 01 1 0 01 0 1 01 0 1 01 0 0 11Own goals 0 0 00Totals4222 165
Hat-tricks Numbers in superscript represent the goals that the player scored. PlayerAgainst Result Date Competition Source Márton Esterházy Ilioupoli 10–0 (H) 6 November 1985 Greek Cup
Clean sheets
The list is sorted by competition order when total clean sheets are equal and then alphabetically by surname. Clean sheets in games where both goalkeepers participated are awarded to the goalkeeper who started the game. Goalkeepers with no appearances are not included. RankPlayerAlpha EthnikiGreek CupUEFA CupTotal110 3 0132 2 0 133 0 1 01Totals12 4 117
Disciplinary record
! colspan="17" style="background:#FFDE00; text-align:center" | Goalkeepers
! colspan="17" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Defenders
! colspan="17" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Midfielders
! colspan="17" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Forwards
! colspan="17" style="background:#FFDE00; color:black; text-align:center;"| Left during Winter Transfer Window
Starting 11 This section presents the most frequently used formation along with the players with the most starts across all competitions.
Formation Matchday(s)424–4–21–30
Player Theologis Papadopoulos (C)GKStelios ManolasRCBTakis KaragiozopoulosLCBMakis ChatzisRBIlias ArmodorosLBNikos PiasRCMDinos BallisLCMPavlos PapaioannouRMMárton EsterházyLMJim PatikasSSHåkan SandbergCF
References
External links AEK Athens F.C. Official Website