Proud record for Panathinaikos

Over the next few weeks uefa.com will be charting the history of all clubs through to next season's UEFA Champions League from the third qualifying round onwards. Here we look at Greek challengers Panathinaikos FC.

Fine record
Panathinaikos FC were founded in 1908 as the football team of the Panellinios sports club, and the Athens side have a record of success second only to rivals Olympiacos CFP in Greek football.

Early success
Known initially as Athens FC and then as Panellinios Podosfairikos Omilos until changing to their current name in 1924, the team found success in their first competition, winning the Panthessaliki Games Cup. In their first years they boasted prolific athlete Costas Tsiklitiras in goal. He took gold in the 1912 Olympic long jump and a bronze in high jump, but he died the following year of meningitis aged 25 during the Balkan Wars.

League champions
With the establishment of regular competitive football in Greece in the 1920s, Panathinaikos, now playing at their Leoforos Stadium - since renamed after Apostolos Nikolaidis, a player of the club in the first years of its existence and later president - began their run of success. They dominated the new Athens championship in that decade, and won the second Hellenic National League competition in 1929/30.

Mantzavelakis era
The following two decades saw the club established as one of Greece's finest, although their next league title was not until 1948/49. In the 1950s they continued to be eclipsed by Olympiacos, but from 1959/60, with the official introduction of professionalism, they began a run which saw them land four league titles in five years under the wing of coach Antonis Mantzavelakis; then Englishman Harry Game, who took charge of the team for the second time in 1960 to 1963; and finally Stefan Bobek, pioneer of the 4-3-3 formation.

European final
Lakis Petropoulos then became coach for the most successful phase in the club's history, as they claimed their first domestic double in 1968/69. In 1971 Panathinaikos reached the final of the European Champion Clubs' Cup, losing to AFC Ajax at Wembley. Since then they have continued to duel for supremacy with Olympiacos, holding the upper hand in the mid-1980s - when they reached the semi-finals of the 1985 European Champion Clubs' Cup and the 1987 UEFA Cup - and the mid-1990s, when they completed their third domestic double in 1994/95 and reached the last four of the UEFA Champions League the following season.

Champions League run
Although since 1996 Olympiacos have monopolised the domestic trophies, Panathinaikos continue to succeed in European competition, their Champions League quarter-final run in 2001/02 seeing them beat the likes of Arsenal FC and FC Barcelona. The following season's title was Panathinaikos' to be won, but a 3-0 loss to Olympiacos in the penultimate round of matches effectively gifted their rivals the title, which they secured on the final day due to a superior head-to-head record.