Kyriakos Papadopoulos

Olympiacos

Born in Katerini, Papadopoulos was playing for hometown club Svoronos Katerinis in July 2007, when he was invited on trial to train with the Espanyol youth team during pre-season, with a view to giving the player a role in the youth team. Papadopoulos, however, performed well enough for the club's management staff to fast-track him to the reserve team, offering him a contract immediately. Olympiacos scouts were also aware of the prodigy's talents, however, and the former manager of Olympiacos, George Louvaris, was quick to secure a deal with Papadopoulos' father Nikos, thus bringing him to Piraeus. He immediately featured in several of Olympiacos' pre-season friendlies, three league games and three Greek Cup games. The 2007–08 season was promising for Papadopoulos. He made his competitive debut for Olympiacos in the Greek Super League as a substitute during a 3–1 win over Atromitos on 2 December 2007, thus becoming the youngest player to ever play in the Greek league at the age of 15 years and 283 days. He also made the substitutes bench in the UEFA Champions League against Real Madrid and Lazio, and featured in several Greek Cup games. If Papadopoulos had featured in any Champions League games, he would have broken the record for the youngest player to ever compete in the competition by nearly two years. In September 2008, Papadopoulos signed a new contract with Olympiacos, which included a £4.6 million release clause, over three years. On 2 November…

Papadopoulos was called up to the under-19 Greece national team for the Elite round of the 2007 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship. He appeared in all three group games against Moldova, Netherlands and Russia, helping Greece finish top and qualify for the finals. Papadopoulos later featured at the heart of the Greek defence in the finals tournament and was partners with teammate Konstantinos Lambropoulos. He was instrumental in keeping a clean sheet against the Czech Republic, as well as strong performances against England and Italy. His performances attracted attention from scouts of elite teams such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. He was the youngest player in the tournament by 13 months and the teams were impressed with the defender's maturity while in a competition. Also, he was one of the ten most talented players in Europe as considered by UEFA in their UEFA Under-19 Team of the Tournament. He finished an excellent season with Schalke when, on 4 June 2011, the then-Greece head coach, Fernando Santos, called up Papadopoulos for a rookie spot on the team for a match against Malta. Due to an injured Avraam Papadopoulos and Sokratis Papastathopoulos being unable play, he took their place in the squad in the centre of defence next to Vangelis Moras. Papadopoulos had an excellent game that included he scoring the team's second match goal. On 6 September 2011, he scored his second international goal against Latvia in UEFA Euro 2012…

Club

As of 4 February 2024

International

Scores and results list Greece's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Papadopoulos goal.

Olympiacos

Super League Greece: 2007–08, 2008–09 Greek Cup: 2007–08, 2008–09 Greek Super Cup: 2007 Schalke 04

DFB-Pokal: 2010–11 DFL-Supercup: 2011