Thomas Mavros

Panionios

At the age of 11, Mavros joined the youth academy of the club and began his intensive involvement with football. The exclusion of his brother from the club's teenage section combined with the disappointment of his family brought him to train with the youth team of Olympiacos. There, Elias Yfantis identified his potential and asked him to join the team. Panionios refused to give him his sport's card, preventing the transfer and Mavros became disillusioned and temporarily withdrew from the club's activities. The situation was resolved by the curator of the club Papidas, after a visit to his house and a promise to 14-year-old Thomas for participation in the youth team. There, he worked under Dezső Bundzsák at the beginning and later Joe Mallett who recognized and developed his potential. On 8 September 1970 he was promoted to the senior team and he became the youngest player to have played in a Greek championship match, at the age of 16. He also the youngest scorer on 17 January 1971, when he scored the only goal at the 65th minute against Pierikos in a 1–0 victory. He also became an international at a very young age whilst not playing for any of the top clubs. On 16 September 1971, he made his European debut against Atlético Madrid in the first round of the UEFA Cup. His appearance made him the then youngest player of a Greek football club to have ever played in a European competition. Initially Mavros played as a left winger and later as a striker, where he…

Mavros represented Greece U19 from 1972 to 1974, scoring four goals in the matches for the European Championship. Two goals against Yugoslavia and one goal on 16 January 1974 against Malta. Then he played with Greece U21 and on 31 May 1972 he scored the winning goal in the semi-final of the European Championship in the 2–1 victory over Czechoslovakia. Mavros made his debut with Greece on 16 February 1972 in a 0–5 home defeat at the hands of the Netherlands. From 1972 to 1984 he made a total of 36 international appearances, scoring 11 goals. His most notable moment was his presence in the 1980 European Championship.

Mavros was born on 31 May 1954 in Kallithea, where he lived for the first four years of his life, until his family moved to Palaio Faliro. His father, Michalis, despite not being a footballer himself, was a huge fan of football. From the age of five, his father used to take him and his brother to the yard of their house every morning, from 7 to 9, teaching them the basics of football. He also took them on Sundays to the Nea Smyrni Stadium to watch Panionios. His elder brother Sotiris, soon joined the children section of Panionios. For the seven-year-old Mavros, it all began on a winter Sunday in 1961, after his father refused to go to the stadium due to bad weather. Mavros decided to go alone to Nea Smyrni to watch a match of Panionios against Pierikos. He waited outside the locker rooms and caught the attention of the team's captain, Takis Papoulidis, who urged Mavros to go out with the rest of the team for the warm-up. At the suggestion of Papoulidis, the two of them played "headers", reaching 65 without dropping the ball. Papoulidis, recognizing the talent and abilities of the young Mavros, urged him to attend every match in the uniform of Panionios and to enter the pitch with the team as their mascot. In the first match in which Mavros served as a mascot, Panionios defeated Olympiacos by 1–0 and he earned 100 drachmas for the luck he brought to the team.

Mavros is married to the former basketball player of Palaio Faliro, Angeliki Agorastopoulou and they have two sons, Dimitris and Sotiris and a daughter, Ioanna.