Congratulations!

[Genome]

Anorthosis 'living a dream' after triumph

"The greatest achievement in Cypriot football history" is how Cyprus daily Politis described it and few would disagree. Anorthosis Famagusta FC became the country's first UEFA Champions League group stage representatives after completing a 3-1 aggregate victory against Olympiacos CFP, but while others are still pinching themselves coach Temuri Ketsbaia believes it is just reward for plenty of hard work.

Read the full article at Uefa.com.

[alen]

Hello guys, I registered here to ask about how you (your club) succeeded in achieving this great success this year and of course, to congratulate you on it.

So...CONGRATULATIONS on the qualifying to Champions League and on your great successes inside the group, along with heroic games your team showed in this ELITE competition!!!

Best of luck in further matches, I wish you beat Pao and Werder and achive a true, true sensation in this year CL :tup:

I am from Croatia and also Dinamo Zagreb fan(we were playing Champions league first) and I am most curious in how you built your team and managed to go this high. Dinamo Zagreb was pretty known club in history, but not anymore. We haven't "survived" in European competitions all the way to spring season for 38 years and our holy grale is to break this curse after this long period of time. This year we are pretty close to this goal although our renewed (after whole, last year team, was sold/dismissed) and vastly changed team doesn't give us high hopes for it, according to their game impressions.

Now back to my original thought. Could someone explain to me in as much details as possible, when the foundation of your, this year victorious team, was laid and when has it's building started, how did it start and was it because of good financial situation, foreign experts/investors, just hard work of your club officials, or any other reason?

How did you raise money for the team, how did you manage to create great team (and for how long) of players who aren't known in Europe by their names or reputation?

I want to know if we are on good road to expect something similar, or to learn what we should do different to manage this, since our goal is to qualify to Champions league next year, which is supposed to be easier since the competition format changes and gives us less tough opponents.

Anyways, thanks for the patience in reading this long post and any help to satisfy my curiosity.

Best wishes, once again :nw:

[Euro2004]

Hello guys, I registered here to ask about how you (your club) succeeded in achieving this great success this year and of course, to congratulate you on it.

So...CONGRATULATIONS on the qualifying to Champions League and on your great successes inside the group, along with heroic games your team showed in this ELITE competition!!!

Best of luck in further matches, I wish you beat Pao and Werder and achive a true, true sensation in this year CL :tup:

I am from Croatia and also Dinamo Zagreb fan(we were playing Champions league first) and I am most curious in how you built your team and managed to go this high. Dinamo Zagreb was pretty known club in history, but not anymore. We haven't "survived" in European competitions all the way to spring season for 38 years and our holy grale is to break this curse after this long period of time. This year we are pretty close to this goal although our renewed (after whole, last year team, was sold/dismissed) and vastly changed team doesn't give us high hopes for it, according to their game impressions.

Now back to my original thought. Could someone explain to me in as much details as possible, when the foundation of your, this year victorious team, was laid and when has it's building started, how did it start and was it because of good financial situation, foreign experts/investors, just hard work of your club officials, or any other reason?

How did you raise money for the team, how did you manage to create great team (and for how long) of players who aren't known in Europe by their names or reputation?

I want to know if we are on good road to expect something similar, or to learn what we should do different to manage this, since our goal is to qualify to Champions league next year, which is supposed to be easier since the competition format changes and gives us less tough opponents.

Anyways, thanks for the patience in reading this long post and any help to satisfy my curiosity.

Best wishes, once again :nw:

Hi Alen, welcome. Thank you for your congratulations and it's great to have someone from Croatia here.

Firstly, it is important to say that if Anorthosis (Ano) can acheive qualifying for the CL then I'm sure a legendary club like Dinamo Zagreb can do the same. Ano have been pursuing this dream for many years now. On numerous occassions Ano reached the final qualifying stage of the CL and failed narrowly at the last hurdle. So the board did all they could to preserve everything that was good at the club and tried to build on that. The strong points were these:

1) Great Manager with total authority: Temuri Ketsbaia was a brilliant player that had a wealth of international experience with Georgia and was also well travelled in club football, playing for Anorthosis, AEK Athens, Newcastle, and towards the end of his career, Wolves, Dundee Utd, etc. So the board at Ano understand that this was a man that understands football and therefore they gave him complete authority over all footballing matters. In countries like Cyprus and Greece this is important for various reasons:

Firstly, the chairman in our countries are crazy and they always want to get involved. For example Greece's most successful club manager in recent years is Dusan Bajevic. He refuses to take control of a club unless the board includes a clause in his contract that they will not get involved in football-matters. Imagine how interfering the chairmen are if this is necessary :blink: Secondly, the fans in Greece and Cyprus are very impatient and demand immediate success. Managers get sacked straight away because of stupid expectations. Building a great team takes time. The board and fans at Anorthosis understood this and Ketsbaia has been given many years to build this team, and even during the bad times they had faith in him.

2) Making the home ground a fortress: Anorthosis' home ground is a fortress. Ano have scored 3 goals at home against Rapid Wienna, Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and Inter this year. Considering how small the club is, this is an amazing acheivement. To acheive this, it is essential that the team has self-belief and that the fans always create a great atmosphere. If I'm not mistaken, Dinamo Zagreb also have great fans so that should not be difficult.

3) Building a good defence: Many small teams play good football, Malta and Belarus for example, but they have no defence so when they play teams that are even better they lose. But if a team is solid at the back they always have a chance. The first thing Ketsbaia did was to build a good passing team but over the years this has not been enough. So this year he focussed on improving the defence. Ano has a good goalkeeper (Beqaj) and some very good defenders (Katsavakis, Constantinou and Dellas) so the team can defend well against big teams. Bardon, Laban, and Dobrasinovic are good passing players in midfield and Savio and Taher are excellent players (the magicians of the team). Up front Sosin and/or Frousos are big strong target man that get goals. So there is a good balance to the team, but the most important thing is to have a good defence.

4) Keeping your best players and building a better squad every year: Over the last few years Anorthosis have had some good players, one example of this is Lukaz Sosin. The Polish striker has been topscorer in Cyprus for a few years now and he scored 2 goals in his 2 caps for Poland. Instead of selling him (Anorthosis rejected a 2.5m euro bid for him from Scotland a couple of years ago which is alot for Cypriot football), they kept him. This year they signed on a couple of big players on free transfers, who are also leaders on the field: Dellas & Savio and have also signed Taher. Dinamo Zagreb haven't done this, for example the team should never have sold Modric. Or if he wanted to go your team should spend the money on great players from less established leagues, i.e. Portugal, Romania, Greece, Belgium, Holland, etc. Dinamo Zagreb need to buy good, cheap players from these leagues and a good scouting system is needed for this.

5) Good financial management: The team must not get into debt. Only buy players that you can afford and build slowly, giving youth a fair chance.

6) Make sure the club mens something: Success is not the only reason to follow football. Be proud of your club's history and what it stands for, even if there is no success at the moment. Below I've posted an article I found regarding what Anorthosis stands for. The players, the board and the fans know this and struggle for the shirt. Also, although you should be a passionate crowd, avoid hooliganism. It makes families stay away from the games and that affects the revenue the club gets. Although Anorthosis create a great atmosphere, it is a family club and hooliganism is rare so people aren't afraid to take their families and this means more money coming in.

If a club as big as Dinamo Zagreb addressed these issues, I'm sure you'll get back to where you belong: as a force in European football. Good luck. :)

Here's the article if you're interested =

Anorthosis Famagusta: The Rise Of The Phoenix

Anorthosis Famagusta is a club many football-fans will never have heard of before this season. To be fair, all I knew was that the team originates from Cyprus...

I was quite surprised to learn that the team has beaten Rapid Wien and Olympiakos Piraeus in the Champions League qualifiers to progress to the main tournament.

This made them the first Cypriot club ever to join the ranks of the European football aristocracy, and reach the group stages of the Champions League.

At first, I considered their results to be a fluke. A smaller side got lucky and eliminated arrogant opponents, who underestimated them. Anything can happen in the knock-out stages of the qualifiers, right?

Once again, Anorthosis proved me wrong by keeping Werder Bremen to a 0-0 draw in the Weserstadium in Germany, and by beating Panathinaikos 3-1 in Cyprus. This was reason enough for me to look into the history of this fairly unknown club.

After some searching, I uncovered a spectacular and intriguing story. Anorthosis Famagusta uses a phoenix in its crest. For those that aren’t into mythology, the phoenix is a mythical sacred firebird, with a tail of beautiful gold and red plumage.

It has a 1,000 year life-cycle, and near the end the phoenix builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again.

The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egypt city of Heliopolis (sun city in Greek). The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible—it is also said that it can heal a person with a tear from its eyes and make them temporarily immune to death; a symbol of fire and divinity.

The choice to include a phoenix in the crest has been a fitting one. Anorthosis is a club of refugees, rising up to rebuild, so it’s only logical these people have adopted the mythical phoenix as their emblem.

The club was originally founded in the town of Famagusta, around 1911. The original goal of the club was to spread Christian and Hellenic virtues amongst the youngsters. Even today the club doesn’t limit itself to football, there is also a volleyball branch and there are philosophy and music classes being taught by club members as well.

In 1974 however, Anorthosis were forced to re-locate due to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The invasion ended up with Turkey occupying a considerable area on the north part of Cyprus and establishing a government on it that only Turkey recognizes as legal. Famagusta, however, is located in this Turkish zone and as many inhabitants (around 200,000) fled, they took their clubs and traditions with them.

Anorthosis became a club for the refugees from Famagusta. The club re-located to Larnaca, but was without a stadium at first. It wasn’t until 1986 that Anorthosis was able to build their own stadium, the Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium.

The stadium was named after a former member, teacher and war-hero who had helped the club in various ways since 1974. The stadium is still considered a temporary stadium by the fans, as their true stadium still stands in Famagusta.

Ever since their exodus, Anorthosis have built up a massive fanbase. Supporters of Anorthosis are known as MAXHTEC ("strugglers" in Greek). The idea is that through struggle, they'll get to the top and return back to their beloved town of Famagusta. Anorthosis' fans are spread all over the island due to the Turkish invasion. There are supporter associations all over the island and in other countries as well (mainly Greece and the UK).

The majority of the Anorthosis fans live in Larnaca however, as the temporary stadium is based there. There are also large numbers of fans in Limassol and Nicosia. MAXHTEC, the ultras, are usually seated at the North tier of stadium. MAXHTEC are considered right-wing, although that's not always the case. They put up Greek Flags but they put up Republic of Cyprus flags as well.

Over the past years, Anorthosis has been fairly successful in Greece. The current squad is an international mixture of various nationalities, being lead by former Georgian international Temuri Ketsbaia.

Famous players at Anorthosis include former Greece captain and Euro 2004 winner Traianos Dellas and former Real Madrid winger and Brazilian international Savio. The squad includes various other nationalities as well, for example players from France, Montenegro, Albania, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Egypt, and of course Greece.

Quite fitting in a way, an emigré club with such an international squad.

It’s this squad and its tenacious Georgian manager that has caused the entire island of Cyprus to go ecstatic with joy when they reached the group stages of the Champions League. To be fair, I never expected them to get this far and I was surprised by the results they have achieved so far. An away draw against Bremen and a home win over Panathinaikos are impressive results. Four points out of two games, that’s four points more then I reckoned they would get.

Not a bad achievement, considering the team shouldn’t even exist after the exodus from Famagusta back in ’74… So, a team that doesn't have a "home" due to an invasion, has now found a home in the Champions League.

[alen]

Euro2004 I can't thank you enough for this post (I know why you're named like that :D it was great achievement indeed, hope that Ano will repeat something similar :tup: )!!!! It's thorough and informative... In one sentence: it is just what I was looking and hoping for!

Thank you very much for your time and patience!

I had my thoughts in the way you described in your post and now I received confirmation.

Thanks for the help once again, and all best in next Champions league challenges, eager to watch your progress to knock-out stage. Go Ano! :gr: :nw:

[Omonoia9]

The story of Anorthosi, as well as Salamina and other refugee clubs further higlights the struggle of all displaced Cypriots. That's why their story is so impressive.

[Euro2004]

Euro2004 I can't thank you enough for this post (I know why you're named like that :D it was great achievement indeed, hope that Ano will repeat something similar :tup: )!!!! It's thorough and informative... In one sentence: it is just what I was looking and hoping for!

Thank you very much for your time and patience!

I had my thoughts in the way you described in your post and now I received confirmation.

Thanks for the help once again, and all best in next Champions league challenges, eager to watch your progress to knock-out stage. Go Ano! :gr: :nw:

Glad I could help. Hope to see you around these boards again. :)

[Irlandos]

It's a shame but if Anorthosis had made the UEFA Cup, they would've had a dream matchup v. Milan! :o

I guess Inter thought their neighbours deserved a worse draw than that! :P