AC Omonia
File:Omonia.gif | |||
Full name | Αθλητικός Σύλλογος Ομόνοια Λευκωσίας Athletic Club Omonia Nicosia | ||
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Nickname(s) | Τριφύλλι (Shamrock) Βασίλισσα (Queen) Λαός (People) Κινέζοι (Chinese) | ||
Founded | 1948 | ||
Ground | Neo GSP Stadium, Nicosia, Cyprus | ||
Capacity | 23,407 | ||
Chairman | ![]() | ||
Manager | ![]() | ||
League | Cypriot First Division | ||
2006-07 | Cypriot First Division, 2nd | ||
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Athletic Club Omonia Nicosia (Greek: Αθλητικός Σύλλογος Ομόνοια Λευκωσίας) is a Cypriot football club, which plays in the capital, Nicosia. With 19 league championships and 12 Cypriot Cups and 14 Super Cups they are, together with APOEL, the country's most-titled club in football. In addition, Omonia have claimed a record five domestic doubles - in 1972, 1974, 1981, 1982 and 1983. The Cyprus Football Association declared them as the Team of the 20th century. Omonia also remains the only team to have won the Cyprus Cup 4 times in a row during the years between 1980 and 1984.
The club was established in 1948 and became member of Cyprus Football Association in 1953. As an athletic club, Omonia has basketball, volleyball, futsal and cycling sections.
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Colours and badge
The badge of the club is the shamrock. The shamrock represents the strength, the struggle, the insistence of the Omonia founders who were in difficult situation and it is also green which is the colour of the hope. Thus, the colours of the club are the green and the white. The Omonia founders chose the green colour, the "hope's colour", because despite that they were in difficult situation after the political events that took place in Cyprus in 1948 with their expulsion from APOEL, they hoped that better days were coming for the football in Cyprus, and also the new club, Omonia, would have leaded, become poineer and triumph in Cypriot football and also would have been in the conscience of the Cypriot people.
Stadium
Main article(s): GSP Stadium, Eleftheria Indoor Hall Template:Future stadium
The team's current stadium is the 23,400 seater Neo GSP Stadium, also known as the Pancypria Stadium and it is the biggest stadium in Cyprus. The stadium is shared with APOEL FC, the other major football club in Nicosia, and Olympiakos Nicosia and they have used it since 1999. The team's previous stadium was Makario Stadium, since 1978 and before that it was the Palaio (Old) GSP Stadium since the 1953, when the team joined the Cyprus Football Association. Both stadiums, like the New GSP Stadium, were shared as well by the other Nicosian teams, APOEL and Olympiakos. In the first years of its establishment, as a team of Cyprus Amature Football Association, Omonia was using the "Goal" Stadium. Plans have been drawn for Omonoia to construct its own privately owned stadium near Tseri, a village just outside Nicosia [1]. The stadium is currently under construction and the new arena will constitute (in terms of spectator capacity) the largest football stadium on the island, with capacity of 32,000 people.
The basketball team uses for home the biggest indoor sport venue in the island, the Eleftheria Indoor Hall with capacity of 6,800 seats and the volleyball team the Lefkotheo Indoor Hall. Lefkotheo is shared with APOEL Nicosia and is used by Omonia since 1980, the year that was built. For the 2006-07, the futsal team uses the Indoor Hall of Melkonian institute which is inside the institute and has capacity of 500 seats.
The Fans
Omonia's fans are considered to be left-wing in their majority. Today they are estimated to be around 40% of the Cypriot people. Unlike the other teams of Cyprus, Omonia is so popular that they have today a lot of supporters from all the cities, town and places in Cyprus, especially in Limassol, where they are estimated as the third most supported team after the other town's teams Apollon and AEL FC. During the years, after the political crisis in many Cypriot football clubs, where new leftists clubs were founded, the Cyprus Football Amature Federation was having much more attendance in the stadiums than the Cyprus FA championship because of Omonia which was the most popular in the island. The popularity of Omonia was one of the reason that there was the unification of Cypriot football and the acceptance of the leftists teams in the Cyprus Football Association.
The team had big difference in the attendances since it existed than the other teams in Cyprus and every stadium that the team had for home until today the GSP Stadium were considered too small for the team. In many matches ticket were sold in few hours after they were being available for sale, especially in matches against the arch-rival APOEL Nicosia.
In 2001, the team broke the record ever in Cyprus about tickets, with the number of 109,303 tickets sold. In 2003, they broke their own record by the new number 140,740 and the record was broken again the following year with 143,033 tickets sold. As a note this number was the biggest than many popular teams in Europe.
There are 2 major clubs supporting the team. PA.SY.FI. and Gate 9 which is the most active fan club. Gate 9 is the biggest club of AC Omonoia Fans. The Main Fan Club Address is on 10, Arxermou Str., Nicosia. The club took it's name from Kaiafas father, Sotiris Kaiafas a who won the European Golden Boot in 1976 and was first organised in 1992. Since then they are following the team everywhere in the world. In some of away European matches had more than 800 or sometimes 1000. Noted about the number of fans was the match against FC Belshina Bobruisk in 1999 had around 1,200 fans.
Current Squad
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Notable players
Listed according to when they debuted for AC Omonia (year in parentheses):
Sotiris Kaiafas (1967)
Mihai Mocanu (1972)
Gregory Savva (1973)
Giorgos Savvidis (1981)
Spas Dzhevizov (1984)
Emil Spasov (1988)
Kostas Malekkos (1989)
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Rainer Rauffmann (1997)
Efstathios Aloneftis (2001)
Marco Haber (2002)
Jozef Kozlej(2004)
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Paulo Rink (2006)
Daniel Bălan (2006)
Zé Elias (2006)
Notable Managers
Igor Netto (1967)
Helmut Senekowitsch (1991)
Dušan Galis (1999)
Asparuh Nikodimov (2000)
Arie Haan (2000)
Henk Houwaart (2000)
Toni Savevski (2002)
Ioan Andone (2006)
Ioannis Matzourakis (2007)
Trophies
Football
- Cypriot Championship:
- Winner (19): 1961, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1993, 2001, 2003
- Cyprus Cup:
- Winner (12): 1965, 1972, 1974, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1988, 1991, 1994, 2000, 2005.
- Cyprus FA Shield:
- Winner (14): 1966, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1994, 2001, 2003, 2005
Cyprus Amature Football Federation
- Championship:
- Winner (4): 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952
- Cup:
- Winner(5): 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953
Volleyball
- Cup:
- Winner (2): 1999, 2006
Records
- Biggest Victory: 11-0 v Doxa Katokopia, Championship, January 17, 2004
- Biggest European Victory: 6-1 v FA Red Boys Differdange, Champions Cup, Round 1, October 3, 1979
- Worst Defeat: 0-10 v Ajax Amsterdam, Champions Cup, Round 1, October 24, 1979
- Worst League Defeat: 1-7 v AEL FC, 1953-54
- Most League Points (2 for a win): 54, 1976-77
- Most League Points (3 for a win): 67, 1998-99
- Most League Goals: 91, 1960-61
- Most consecutive league matches unbeaten: 46, January 29, 1984 - December 14, 1985
- Most Appearances : 503 Andreas Kanaris
- Most Goals scored : 321 Sotiris Kaiafas
- Most Goals scored in a Match: 8 Rainer Rauffmann v Anagennisis Deryneia, 1998
- Most Goals scored in League season:: 44 Sotiris Kaiafas, 1976-77