Christos Kostis

Christos Kostis (born 15 January 1972) is a Greek former professional footballer who played as a forward. Kostis is widely regarded to be one of the most technical players Greece has ever produced, but his great injury in 1997 stopped his from making a big career. His nickname was "the Greek Cruyff".
Club career
Iraklis
Kostis begun his professional career at Iraklis, where at a young age became the club's best striker. This made AEK Athens and Olympiacos battle for his signature during the summer of 1994. The officials of Olympiacos and Iraklis agreed for the transfer and Kostis took a flight for Athens in order to sign his new contract with the red and whites. Surprisingly, he found the officials of AEK Athens waiting for him at the airport, as during the flight they made a better offer to Iraklis and signed him for the club's record fee at time of 450 million drachmas.
AEK Athens
His first season in the team, was a period of adjustment, nevertheless he was the team's first player in appearances in the league scoring 11 times. The following season alongside Batista, Tsiartas, Ketsbaia and Savevski, he formed an incredible offensive midfield line. On 28 October 1995 he scored in the derby against Olympiacos at home making the final 1–1. In 18 November of the same year, he also scored the winner in the Athenian derby against Panathinaikos. On 3 January 1996 he scored at the away win against Olympiacos for the first leg of the round of 16 for the cup. Competing during this particular season mainly on the left flank of the attack, he was again first in appearances in the league scoring 19 times, while he won the Cup with the yellow-blacks. His best season was in 1996–97, where he won the cup again, while he was again their first player in league appearances and the top scorer with 21 goals. He scored again in the league game against Olympiacos making the final 2–0 for AEK on 13 January 1997. But at the start of the next season his career was cut short when on 23 October 1997 he got seriously injured after a collision with the goalkeeper of Sturm Graz, Kazimierz Sidorczuk during the fist leg of the second round of the Cup Winners' Cup. Since then he has virtually never been able to become the same player again. The titles he won with AEK were 3 cups and 1 Super Cup.
Later career
Kostis underwent surgery, underwent treatments and in 1998, while he was still injured, was transferred to Anderlecht, but did not manage to play at all for the Belgian team. In 2000 and after various surgeries, he returned to AEK, but he had new injuries and was never able to find himself again. On his return to AEK and despite the great effort he made to return to a high level and with the people and the administrations of AEK supporting him as much as they could, he did not succeed. He had only 7 league appearances until 2005 when he left to play for Alki Larnaca in one season. He finished his career playing for Ajax Cape Town in the summer of 2007.
International career
He debuted for the Greece national football team on 10 March 1993 and went to score 4 times during his 15 caps.
After football
Kostis during the period 2012–13 was the general captain of the football department of AEK.
Career statistics
International
Honours
AEK Athens
Greek Cup: 1996–97, 1999–2000, 2001–02
Greek Super Cup: 1996
References
External links
1972 births
Living people
Footballers from Thessaloniki
Greek men's footballers
Greece men's international footballers
Greek expatriate men's footballers
Men's association football forwards
AEK Athens F.C. players
AEK F.C. non-playing staff
Alki Larnaca FC players
R.S.C. Anderlecht players
Iraklis F.C. (Thessaloniki) players
Cape Town Spurs F.C. players
Expatriate men's footballers in Cyprus
Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium
Expatriate men's soccer players in South Africa
Super League Greece players
Cypriot Second Division players