George Delikaris: Sunday’s dream

There are legends in football, there are myths. Legends are decoded. You can explain why a team or a player became a legend. With myth decoding is not easy, sometimes it is impossible. The following incident explains why myths cannot be decoded. Summer of 2006.

George Delikaris decides for the first time since 1981 to get out of the isolation he has imposed on himself. George Helakis recalls: « I meet him for the first time in my life. The reason for the elliptical, almost allegorical and sometimes poetic. He sometimes speaks with his silences and others with his tearful eyes. The following dialogue is authentic.

In Greece there have been players with a greater offer than that of Delikaris. With great organizational or executive potential. But no one was as genius as he

– Mr. George, what was your biggest moment on the stadiums?

– On Sundays at noon …

But, all Sundays?

On Sundays at noon I waited outside of « G. Karaiskakis »children from Keratsini and Drapetsona…

Excuse me I didn’t understand.

The kids were coming and I was going to eat. Then I gave them tickets to enter the court …

But Mr. George …

(it hits me friendly in the back). Yes, that …  »

So « that ». Neither the championships with Olympiacos nor the worship of the fans nor the goals with West Germany at the time, nor the call to the mixed world who played with Pele, Cruyff and Eusebius. George Delikaris had his own perception of right and ethics. Had an instinctive reaction to injustice. His father was fiercely suffering from the postwar regime and lived at times exiled and sometimes hunted. The event marked his son.

He created a sense of the law and the morale that marked all his choices and his reactions within and outside the stadiums. His teammates often had difficulty understanding his reactions and behavior. Again with example: In 1971 the National Armed Forces returned from a victorious match abroad. Inside the plane there is a debate by the players about the possibility of a bonus for winning but it is immediately found that there is no such possibility.

Delikaris tells his teammates that he will give himself the money. Most of his objections and his differences with Olympiacos focus on the period left by Nikos Goulandris. The leader of Olympiacos reacts to the fact that foreign players coming to the team sign a specific period of time, while Greek footballers were committed to eight years and are basically less pay. George Delikaris can never be deciphered. The fans adore him, women besieged him but he has his own codes of behavior.

Who to compare with him

He was genius and unconventional even in the way he was fighting. To describe it: Alexandra Avenue Stadium. October 1978, Nations Cup qualifiers (so the Euro then said). National is already ahead of Finnish 7-1. In the midfield, a Greek international, Ardizoglou, who has come in, gives the ball to Delikaris, makes a move to take it again, and he, instead of giving it ahead, moves backwards and his teammate gets disadvantaged.

The leader of the National team makes a whole rotation around his axis. He gives neither to Ardizoglou nor the Galako who sees him in front of him and left. It makes the rotation and during that time – as it is natural – the Finnish center -backs take steps forward and come towards it. Delikaris completes the rotation and seems to throw the ball forward and left.

In the television plan following the ball, neither teammate nor an opponent appears. Suddenly the Galakos appears in the Finnish area and scores a beautiful goal. Delikaris has seen his teammate but does not give him the ball at once.

He does not even give it to Ardizoglou who moves in front of him. Makes the rotation to pull the defenders high. And when he finishes the rotation, Finland’s defenders have fallen on him and he, without seeing, throws the ball into the empty space where Galakos runs. The balls of the ball have already seen this phase in a video.

Two legends in the cross. « General » Mimis Domazos (left) with « Greek George Best » George Delikaris before a derby of eternity

No one knew what he would do …

Let them also follow it to those younger readers of the text to find out what it means to be genius. What does it mean to be inventive and unexpected. No one besides his initiated teammates knew what he would think and how he would act. When will it be lost from the stadium and when it will make a magical energy that will disassemble the opposing defense. In Greece there have been players with a greater offer than that of Delikaris. Players with great organizational or executive potential. But no one was as genius as the myth of Greek football. There were two important absences that marked Delikaris’ football career.

The first was in the game of Olympiacos with Anderlecht in Patras. One injury kept him out in the game that the Hungarian referee Palotai deprived his whistle. Everyone said that if Delikaris was playing in this game, nor the inexplicable Palotai would stop the reds. The second (again injured) was one of the final of the Nations Cup in 1980 in Italy.

Ethniki had qualified by defeating the Soviet Union 1-0 on Alexandra Avenue with a goal by Takis Nikoloudis, which has started from a wonderful atomic energy by George Delikaris when he has been out of the Italian.

The withdrawal

George Delikaris was marked by his decision to leave Olympiacos and never explained the reasons. Here’s another treaty that built his legend. « It’s a secret I am not going to reveal. I’ll keep it for me. I was hurt, suffered, I am still in pain for this decision. But, enough. I honored myself for my weaknesses, « he said in a rare interview.

Closed to himself and after refusing to be honored for his contribution to football by then Deputy Minister of Sport George Lianis, he returned to his silence after his appearance at « George Karaiskakis » twenty years ago where he was worshiped by his friends.

It was as if he appeared to restore his relationships with those who never loved someone else like him. Because those who saw, in the cements of « G. Karaiskakis ”, George Delikaris do not mean to be compared.

George Delikaris was marked by his decision to leave Olympiacos and never explained the reasons. Here’s another treaty that built his legend.

Obscure and modesty

And those kids from Drapetsona and Keratsini will always remember that there was no other footballer inside and outside the stadiums. Refusing to give interviews or at least to work together to make tributes, George Delikaris lives in Penteli, facing problems with his health. He did nothing at all to preserve his legend. « At our meeting in the summer of 2006 the discussion ended so, » says George Helakis:

« Mr. George, since you stopped, have you played a ball again, even with your friends?

Mmmm, once…

You played, Mr. George, we learned nothing …

Yes, I went up an uphill and at the top the kids were playing ball …

Ah, did you play with them?

Their ball left and went down to me. I thought … (silence)

What did you think?

Let them return them with a pass …

Only this, a pass since you stopped?

No. I grabbed her with my hands and gave her …  »