‘If You Didn’t See Him Play, You’ll Never Know What You Missed…’

Those who had the opportunity to see him play in his Olympiacos jersey swore that the red-and-white stripe never suited anyone so well. It was as if he’d been touched by the hand of an artist like Tsarouchis or Gyzis, like a work of art. Old-timers would say about Thanasis Bebis, “if you didn’t see him play, you’ll never know what you missed.”

Yes, for decades, it was as if everyone was in cahoots every time the conversation turned to Olympiacos’ pre-eminent number “10” jersey. Because the same phrase tripped off their tongues: “If you didn’t see him play…”

From teammate Savvas Theodoridis, who loved him like a brother, to Mimis Domazos, rival Panathinaikos’ on-field “general”, who kept a photograph of him on his headboard and had “Olympique” shouted at him by fans in the Panathinaikos stands every time he tried to imitate his childhood hero’s unique style.

So too from Giorgos Sideris, who never got to play alongside him during Bebis’s prime – and never got over his disappointment – to the publisher of the sports paper “Fos”, Theodoros Nikolaidis.

Goal and… a cap, too

And here are some stories where you can’t really be sure where legend leaves reality in its wake. The setting is during a big derby against cross-town Ethnikos, they say.

Stathis Mandalozis, the first goalkeeper to win the “flying fox” medal for his acrobatic saves, stood guard in front of the Ethnikos goal posts. He liked to play with a flat cap. At some point, Bebis pushes into his penalty area. He passes one defender, then a second and stops in front of Mandalozis then dribbles past him, grabbing the cap off his head on the way. They pass the goal line together— the ball, the cap and Mandalozis, who’s trying to swat away the ball in time. The scene resembled the characters in one of the football comics of bygone eras.

This is the stuff “Pinocchio” was made of—to use the nickname bestowed on Bebis by the Cypriot journalist Pavlos Krinaios.

Standing a mere 1.64 meters tall, Bebis was “skin and bones”. However, on the pitch, he was a “maestro”. With the ball at his feet ready to do his bidding, and Bebis with his head held high, he was selecting the next play from an inexhaustible repertoire and running through his head before revealing it to his team-mates. The youngsters who never got to see him play, but only heard the muffled commentary on the radio, used to say they imagined a giant of a man, two meters tall at least, leading the “divine” Mouratis, Rossidis, Darivas, Kotridis, Yfantis and all the others to football immortality — when their Olympiacos achieved the title “Legend” for the rest of its days, inspiring the whole of post-war Greece.

Bebis was born in the late 1920s, in Petralona district of central Athens. He first played football with a local team, called interestingly enough “Prasina Poulia”, Greek for “green birds”. He then transferred to another local team, Akratitos, based a few streets away in Ano Petralona, before finding his way in 1947 to a more well-known club, Fostiras, in the nearby Tavros district.

It was there that he joined another four strikers who would give Fostiras its nickname of “giant killer”.

Bebis had to go to court to swap his Fostiras jersey for the red and white of Olympiacos, when the Tavros club produced a declaration of “eternal loyalty” with his signature on it:

“I declare that I will be a loyal follower of Fostiras and never leave my beloved club,” the outlandish “contract” stated. Bebis accused the club’s management of forgery but couldn’t prove it.

Still, he found a way to leave for Piraeus, having shown considerable patience and enduring a lengthy ban that delayed his joining Olympiacos.

15 glorious years

Bebis stayed with Olympiacos for almost 15 years. He won six championships with the Piraeus club, five of them in a row (he didn’t play in the 1954 season due to a dispute with management).

He won eight Greek Cups as well as the Balkan Cup in 1963. In 1959, he was on the team for Olympiacos’ first European matches, against Milan. In 1961, he was injured in just the second minute of the Piraeus side’s celebrated 2-1 victory against Pele’s Santos in a friendly. Off the pitch, he was a saint. He never smoked, never partied at all hours, avoiding drinking and carousing. On the field, however, he was a beast. Ready to take on an entire stand by himself.

One time, Olympiacos headed north to Thessaloniki to play PAOK for the championship. Back then, PAOK played in what is now the International Exhibition.

The stands were so close to the pitch that the Reds didn’t go near the dressing room at half-time, as they’d have to push through the crowd. They spent the break standing around on the pitch instead. Nevertheless, they won in the end—making the title theirs! But as they’re leaving—three hours after the final whistle—the team bus is pelted with rocks.

Everyone is thinking the same thing: “Let’s get the hell out of here and call it a day.”

But Bebis didn’t think twice. He sticks his head out a window, literally hangs out the window holding his jersey, yelling: “You buggers… we believe in this. And we play for it”. This was the same man who, during the 1960 Olympiacos-Panathinaikos final at the Karaiskakis Stadium, hung his Cross around Mimis Domazos’ neck and said: “Kid, you’ll be my successor one day, when I quit”.

This was an Olympiacos great recognizing an up-and-coming virtuoso playing for his team’s eternal rival. That was the ethos of a past era.

There’s something else we mustn’t forget: he loved to prank his close friend Andreas Mouratis.

“Missouri”, as Mouratis was called, didn’t like reading and couldn’t handle too much information at once. And, of course, information about football opponents was thin on the ground back then. So, midweek, Bebis would start spouting off about the striker that Mouratis would have to cover come Sunday. He’d just say whatever came into his head. Oftentimes before a match, during the warm-up, he’d point out some player on the other team to Mouratis at random.

“That’s him,” he’d say, and when the truth came out, all hell would break loose.

Bebis didn’t play with the national team as much. Just 17 caps in all, because “I couldn’t stand the unfairness of it all”, as he said.

He fell out with the Greek Football Federation management when they didn’t keep their word and reimburse the players their owed pay. Keep in mind, back then footballers weren’t professionals and didn’t make their living from playing.

The break came before the national team’s match against Israel in 1953. He left the hotel with two or three other players the night before the game. Bebis returned the next day, played and scored, with Greece winning 1-0. But the “glass” had been broken, and the relationship completely soured when after a trip to Madrid the federation declined to pay a … $2-3 salary UEFA had stipulated for internationals.

Always true

His football career ended in 1963 in the port city that had always occupied a special place in his heart. But Bebis’s relationship with Olympiacos did not. He would return in the 1980s to act as interim coach on several occasions. With 15 games on the bench, in the 1979-80, 1983-84 and 1984-85 seasons, Olympiacos never once lost (10 wins and five draws).

On the last day of the 1983-84 season, Olympiacos was playing the season’s champions, Panathinaikos, at home and wanted to win at all costs to secure a spot in Europe.

The “Greens” were dreaming of taking a lap of honor around Karaiskakis, but Bebis wouldn’t have that.

“If they want, the Federation can send them bicycles and they can ride around Karaiskakis. However, there’ll be no lap of honor. Not ever!” A goal by Tassos Mitropoulos in the 86^th minute gave Olympiacos the victory. “Better to beat Panathinaikos and lose to… Buda!”, Pinocchio shouted as he headed for the locker room.

One last image: on October 8, 2012 at the Tavros Stadium during an old-timers’ friendly, the Federation honors Bebis for his enormous contribution. Bebis takes a few steps, reaches the Olympiacos flag and kisses it three times. He would pass away five years later, on July 23, 2017.

“One of the greatest players in the history of Greek football, a great man, with OLYMPIACOS in his soul, whose love for his Club’s red and white banner was always moving, passed away today at the age of 90, but he leaves a profound stamp on the history of the Club and the souls of fans everywhere”, read the announcement of his final farewell. Something that manages to say a great deal in a few words.