Stelios Giannakopoulos

Early career

Giannakopoulos is the second son of Alekos, a former football player who played during the 1960's. He joined Ethnikos Asteras (the semi-professional club of his neighbourhood Kaisariani) when he was seven years old, later moved for one year to Doxa Vyronas, and finally made his first-team debut for Ethnikos Asteras in the autumn of 1991, in a season which ended with the club gaining promotion to the professional Third Division. Next year, in his opening season as a professional, the young striker found himself scoring six goals and impressing the scouters of clubs that participated in higher divisions. In the summer of 1993 he moved to Paniliakos; he stayed there for three years, scoring 26 goals in 84 games and establishing himself as a member of the national U21 team.

Olympiacos

Having attracted the attention of the top clubs, in the summer of 1996 Giannakopoulos signed for Olympiacos at the age of 21. One of Giannakopoulos' career highlights came in only his second season with the club when he prestigiously scored Olympiacos' first ever Champions League goal against Porto. The stunning 40-meter lob was voted as the goal of the competition by fans and also led to Olympiacos' first ever win in the competition. Olympiacos won the Greek championship in every single season while Giannakopoulos was with them and reached the quarter finals of the Champions League during the 1998–99 season. His reputation as a player was cemented in his last and…

Giannakopoulos made his international debut on 12 March 1997 in a friendly game against Cyprus. His first international goal came almost two years later on 5 February 1999 in a friendly game against Belgium. He fell out of favour slightly in 2000 and 2001 featuring in only three games in two years however cemented his place in the team from 2002 onwards, featuring in every single game of the EURO 2004 qualifiers. One of his most important and memorable goals with the Greece national football team was during those qualifiers; Giannakopoulos scoring the only goal in a 1–0 away victory against Spain in Zaragoza, in a game which ensured automatic qualification for Greece. He was also one of the key players in the victorious team at the 2004 European Football Championship playing in four out of six games including the final. Following this success, Giannakopoulos would remain a key part of the national team, becoming Greece's top scorer in their failed 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign. He was also amongst the squad that unsuccessfully defended their title at the Euro 2008 competition. His last game for the national team came during that competition, in the 2–1 defeat against Spain on 18 June 2008. Giannakopoulos had scored a total of 12 goals for the national team; an interesting statistic being that Greece had won all but one of the games in which Giannakopoulos had scored in.

On 25 May 2010, Giannakopoulos was voted as president of the Greek Professional Footballers Association, taking over from his former teammate Antonios Nikopolidis. He started his managerial career on 13 August 2012 after taking charge of his old team Paniliakos F.C. in Football League 2 (Greece). Paniliakos fired Stelios on 20 January 2013. Other managerial stints followed including a short spell with A.E._Kifisia_F.C. in 2016 and assisting the national team manager Angelos Anastasiadis during his position as the Greece national team coach in 2018–19. There were some widespread but short-lived talk in 2015 that Giannakopoulos was heading a consortium to take over the financially troubled Bolton Wanderers but this did not materialise. Giannakopoulos has been a vocal critic of how football is run in Greece, in March 2015 he said in an interview with BBC Sport that he feared continued violence at games threatened the future of the sport in his country. The Greek government had suspended professional football play three times that season because of violence at matches. "Football people like myself, we are little bit concerned about football in Greece in the future," said Giannakopoulos. He also added: "We need support from UEFA, from [world players' union] FIFPro and of course we need support from the Greek government, which is completely new. All these [should] sit down together at the same table and take some decisions."

Giannakopoulos' second born son, Dimitris, is also a footballer and as of 2022 plays for the Bolton Wanderers Academy.