Ο ΟΦΗ αντιμετωπίζει σήμερα στις 15.30 ώρα Ελλάδας την Ουτρέχτη, στο τελευταίο φιλικό στην Ολλανδία, πριν επιστρέψει αύριο στην Κρήτη.

Η ολλανδική ομάδα δημοσίευσε στην επίσημη ιστοσελίδα της ένα αφιέρωμα για τον ΟΦΗ, με 7 γνωστά facts για τον κρητικό σύλλογο.


Συνοπτικά, τα επτά δεδομένα του ΟΦΗ:

- Τι σημαίνουν τα αρχικά Ο.Φ.Η.

- Ο ΟΦΗ είναι "πολυαθλητικός" σύλλογος (omnisport), με τμήματα σε μπάσκετ, βόλεϊ, πόλο, στίβο κτλ.

- Αν και ο ΟΦΗ είναι από τις πιο γνωστές ομάδες στην Ελλάδα, το 2015-16 χρεοκόπησε και πήγε στη Γ' Εθνική, όμως επανήλθε γρήγορα στην πρώτη κατηγορία.

- Πέρσι συμμετείχε στα πλέι άουτ, όπου βγήκε άνετα πρώτος.

- Οι περισσότεροι ξένοι του ΟΦΗ αγωνίζονται μεσοεπιθετικά. Και η πορεία του Βάλντας Νταμπράουσκας.

- Σε όποιον πεις στο Ηράκλειο ότι είσαι Ολλανδός, θα σου πει για τον Ευγένιο Γκέραρντ. Τον θρυλικό προπονητή που έμεινε στην Κρήτη για 15 χρόνια.

- Το γήπεδο του ΟΦΗ.

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Το αφιέρωμα στα Αγγλικά:

7 facts about OFI Crete

Also this season FC Utrecht is sparring with OFI Crete. Time to refresh the knowledge about the opponent.

Does the FC Utrecht – OFI Crete poster sound very familiar to you? That could be right! Almost exactly a year ago, both teams faced each other at Sportcomplex Zoudenbalch, just like this afternoon (Saturday). Time to refresh the knowledge about the Greek opponent of the Utrecht team, before the ball starts rolling again.

Omilos Filathlon Irakleiou . That is what the letters O, F and I stand for in the club name OFI Crete. Freely translated it means: Association of Sports Friends of Heraklion. Heraklion is the capital of the Greek island of Crete.

OFI Crete is an omnisport club . In addition to a football team, the Greeks also have a basketball team, a volleyball team and a water polo team. In addition, the omniclub has an athletics branch. There are more omnisport clubs in Greece that have a football team that competes in the top, such as AEK Athens, Olympiacos and PAOK Saloniki.

Although OFI Crete is one of the most famous clubs in Greece, the team suddenly played on the third level a few years ago . There the club ended up in the 2015/2016 season after a sporting and financial malaise. The advance since then has been firm: in 2016 the title was immediately taken in the Gamma Ethniki, and two years later the championship in the Football League (the Greek equivalent of the Kitchen Champion Division) was also a fact. OFI has been playing at the highest level again since the summer of 2018.

Last season, OFI Crete missed out on qualifying for the championship competition. OFI never ran into problems in the relegation group . The team from Crete even won that competition quite convincingly. The curtain fell for Ionikos and Levadiakos, the numbers seven and eight of the relegation round.

The more towards the front line you get, the more non-Greeks you will find in OFI Crete's squad . The majority of the attackers are foreign players: Santiago Mosquera (Colombia), Bruce Kamau (Australia), Thievy Bifouma (Republic of Congo), Luiz Phellype (Brazil), Nouha Dicko (Mali) and Sebastian Grönning (Denmark) are among the forwards of the Greek club, which is trained by Valdas Dambrauskas from Lithuania. He worked in England, Croatia and Bulgaria, among others, before settling in Greece.

Anyone who tells the local OFI fans in Iraklion that they are from the Netherlands will soon be pointed to a legendary compatriot in Crete: Eugène Gerards. Gerards started working as a trainer at OFI in 1985 and stayed on for no less than fifteen seasons. That is still a record in Greek professional football. Gerards, who played for Fortuna Sittard in the Netherlands, coached OFI in 630 games. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 77.

Theodoros Vardinoyannis Stadium is the home ground of OFI Crete . The stadium is located in Heraklion, which has 174,000 inhabitants. The structure was opened in 1951 and has 7,323 seats.