Bolton Wanderers hit the jackpot with European champion – He earned cult hero status at Sam Allardyce’s Reebok revolution | OneFootball

Stelios Giannakopoulos joined Bolton Wanderers in the summer of 2003 and won UEFA EURO 2004, before going on to carve out legendary status at the club

Throughout the mid-2000s, Bolton Wanderers turned themselves into a force to be reckoned with in the Premier League with four successive top eight finishes, a cup final, a couple of European qualifications and coming ever so close to UEFA Champions League football.

They were a side made up of cult heroes that had made their name at the Reebok Stadium, as well as some genuine stars of the world game such as Jay-Jay Okocha, Fernando Hierro and Youri Djorkaeff.

Someone that perhaps falls into both of those categories would be Stylianos Giannakopoulos, or Stelios for short. Stelios was the name on the back of his Bolton kit with the Greek midfielder opting to help Wanderers fans out with the spelling and pronunciation.

That sort of cordial relationship from the start blossomed into a special romance between Stelios'and Bolton fans, which still exists to this day, and he is perhaps the greatest unsung hero from Sam Allardyce’s Boltonian ‘galacticos’.

European champion Stelios thrived at Bolton Wanderers

Giannakopoulos began his professional career with Ethnikos Asteras before moving to Paniliakos after just one season. After three years with Paniliakos, he moved to Greek giants Olympiacos.

Whilst with Thrylos, Stelios made 230 appearances and scored 72 goals as an attacking midfielder that would often be deployed out-wide and he was a key player for them as they won one Greek Cup as well as seven league titles.

Having been named Greek Footballer of the Year in 2003, Stelios then made the move to Bolton in the summer of 2003 – and he almost immediately became a fans’ favourite.

Quite remarkably, he also became the first and still only player to have won a major international tournament as a Bolton player as he was a part of the Greece side that won UEFA EURO 2004, just a few months after he had been a fulcrum of the Trotters side that had reached the League Cup final.

In his second season in Lancashire, Stelios scored seven Premier League goals as the Whites narrowly missed out on a top four finish before then bettering that tally to finish as the club’s top scorer in the 2005/06 campaign.

Even as his talents and pace diminished in the last couple of seasons he spent at the Reebok, he still came up with some special moments for the club, notably scoring a late equaliser against Greek outfit Aris Thessaloniki in the group stages of the 2007/08 UEFA Cup to help Wanderers qualify for the knockout stages.

He finished up with 28 goals in 177 appearances for the Whites but those stats perhaps don’t quite do justice to the impact he had at the club, with the love of the fanbase still very strong to this day.

Stelios’ connection to Bolton Wanderers

Giannakopoulos has remained someone close to Bolton, occasionally getting in the stands for games with supporters at away matches, and his son, Dimitris, also joining their academy a few years’ ago. There was also some talk he was leading a consortium to buy the financially challenged club back in 2015.

In an era where some of the genuine greats of the game graced the town, Stelios’ overall reputation to neutrals perhaps does not match his teammates’ accolades, and yet he was still a major success at the club, both with Bolton and on the international stage.

That so-called ‘golden era’ in the modern day for the Whites came as a result of many brilliant decisions made by the club and the arrival of Stelios very much falls into that category, joining at the start of an eighth placed finish and then being a major part of that four-year ride.

After short stints with Hull City and AEL Limassol, Stelios eventually retired in 2009 having forged himself the status of a legend at Greece’s biggest club, Olympiacos, as well as at Bolton Wanderers.