Legendary Greek goalkeeper Takis Oikonomopoulos who played for Panathinaikos and the National Team died in hospital on Monday at the age of 81. The veteran football player had been admitted to an ICU of Erythros Stavros Hospital in Athens ten days earlier after suffering a stroke.
Oikonomopoulos was nicknamed “The Bird” after the impressive saves he made during his career. He is considered one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of Greek football. According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), he has been named the starting goalkeeper in Greece’s all-time best XI.
Takis Oikonomopoulos’ career
While playing for Panathinaikos, he did not concede a goal for 1,088 minutes (in a span of 13 consecutive games—a record for Greece which remains unbroken). The record spanned from 17 January 1965 until 9 May 1965. His record places him in spot number 19 in the World’s Top Division Goalkeepers of all time with the longest time without conceding a goal
Oikonomopoulos was a squad member that reached the 1971 European Cup Final. He played the whole European competition wearing the shirt of his idol José Ángel Iribar, a legendary keeper nicknamed “El Txopo” from Athletic Bilbao and the Spanish national team, which he got from a Spain-Greece game in 1970.
After Panathinaikos, Oikonomopoulos also played for Panachaiki and Apollon Athens before he retired in 1979.
In his 23-year career, he wore the national team shirt 25 times. He made his debut in 1965, and the last time he participated in a match for the Greek National Team was in 1974.
Oikonomopoulos won a total of seven team titles, five Greek championships (1964, 1965, 1969, 1970, and 1972) and two Greek Cups (1967 and 1969).
Oikonomopoulos dies a few weeks after Domazos
After retiring as a football player, he went on to work with Panathinaikos as a goalkeeping coach.
In 2002, Takis Oikonomopoulos became responsible for coaching Panathinaikos’ first team during the four last matches of the season—after coach Sergio Markarián had been barred from entering any stadium for 40 days following an incident with Olympiakos.
In 2017 he was appointed by the court as president of Panathinaikos A.O. He resigned on 13 January 2018.
The passing of Oikonomopoulos follows the death of Mimis Domazos, the Greek soccer legend and a Panathinaikos icon who died at an Athens hospital in January.
Oikonomopoulos and Domazos were team-mates during the golden year of Panathinaikos when the Athens team reached the final of the European cup at Wembley, losing to Dutch champions Ajaz.
Domazos played as an attacking midfielder and was the Panathinaikos captain for 15 years. He was also the National team captain for several years. He ended his glorious career in the summer of 1980 with a record of 539 appearances and 139 goals.