| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Themistoklis Asderis | ||
| Date of birth | 1900 | ||
| Place of birth | Constantinople,Ottoman Empire | ||
| Date of death | 22 March 1975(1975-03-22) (aged 74–75) | ||
| Place of death | Athens, Greece | ||
| Position | Defender | ||
| Youth career | |||
| Enosis Tataoulon | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1918–1923 | Pera Club | ||
| 1924–1929 | AEK Athens | 0 | (0) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1930–1931 | Asteras Athens | ||
| 1931–1933 | AEK Athens | ||
| 1936–1937 | AEK Athens | ||
| 1943–1944 | Panathinaikos | ||
| 1945–1947 | Olympiacos | ||
| Asteras Athens | |||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Themos Asderis (Greek:Θέμος Ασδέρης; 1900 – 22 March 1975) was aGreekfootballer who played as adefender in the 1920s and a later manager. He was considered a pioneer for the Greek football and he was one of the main founders ofPera Club andAEK Athens.
Born inConstantinople in 1900 Asderis started playing football from a young age, at the only clubs that had a football department at the time, Enosis Tataoulon and laterPera Club. Theblack July of 1922 struck theHellenism atAsia Minor and thousands ofGreeks were forced to flee toGreece. Most of them managed to reachAthens and the 22-year-old Asderis was among them. Struck by misfortune, they soon sought the daily life of the city and two years after the war, they tried to play football in a poor, wounded and suspicious towards the refugees Greece. Some of those people, in a small place in the offices of the Young Men's Christian Brotherhood of Athens in the center of city, that were housed on Mitropoleos Street, decided to resurrect theMegali Idea, that was born in Constantinople and light the flame that was burning after their drama in 1922 and thusAthlitikí Énosis Konstantinoupόleos (Athletic Union of Constantinople,Greek:Αθλητική Ένωσις Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) were created.[1]
Before two months had passed, the newly established AEK were staffed by an overwhelming majority of Constantinopolitan footballers. Asderis who was one of them, competed as their right and central defender in the2–3–5 formation of that era with his small and fast posture.[2] He formed a great defending partnership alongside Miltos Ieremiadis, for the first 5 years of the club's excistance. In those years, football was highly amateur, there was not a Football Federation in Greece and AEK were training in the open field next toTemple of Olympian Zeus. Asderis had already reached the age of 28 when AEK informally acquired their home ground atNea Filadelfeia in 1928 and managed to compete atthe soil of Filadelfeia, before retiring as a footballer a year later.[3]
Asderis started his career as a referee almost immediately after his retirement as a football player in 1930 and refereed football matches in both Athens andThessaloniki for a season, but with meager results. In fact, he, alongside Sotiris Asprogerakas and the Hungarian former manager of AEK, Josef Sveg, were among the few pre-war referees in the history of Greek football. He also became the manager of Ateras Athens.[4]
He was one of the few people who had contact with football and very quickly returned to AEK, taking over the technical leadership of the club, after the removal ofEmil Rauchmaul. With Asderis at the bench AEK won their first ever title. On 8 November 1931 in the firstCup final in the history of the institution, they defeatedAris by5–3 atLeoforos Alexandras Stadium.[5] In the same year, the state-run newspaper"Acropolis" organized aChristmas Cup in Athens with the participation of AEK,Panathinaikos,Olympiacos,Apollon Athens and the AustrianAdmira Wacker. AEK also won the "Acropolis Cup" with 4–3, to a surprise of the Austrian fans and became the first team to win two Cups in a season with Asderis as their coach.[6]
He remained at the bench of AEK until 1933 and later returned the team alongsideKostas Negrepontis in a period of decline for the team. AEK after the renewal and the arrival of the players of their academy, which was the first in Greece, such asKleanthis Maropoulos,Tryfon Tzanetis andMichalis Delavinias, were ready to start their domestic domination. In 1937 AEK did not participate in thechampionship because they planned to return to their roots. They traveled to Istanbul in an intense emotional charge and participated in mini tournaments withGüneş andFenerbahçe. They lost in the first game to the Turkish champions by 2–1, but beat Fenerbahçe by 3–2. At that time the club was ready for big things and proved it with the first ever domestic double in Greek football in 1939.[7] The following season was the last appearance of Asderis on the bench of AEK, again as an intermediate link in the tenure of Negrepontis. The team won the championship again and looked to the future with optimism, since their generation of players was unique and won their opponents with great ease. Unfortunately, theWorld War II came, asMussolini ordered his troops toinvade Greece after the historicrefusal ofMetaxas to surrender the country to theItalians and football was no longer priority.[8]
Asderis spent a period at Panathinaikos,[9] where he helped them stand alongside the other Constantinopolitan and founding member of AEK Fokiona, Dimitriadis, during the very difficult years of theOccupation. With the release of Greece and the restart of the national football championships, came the call from Olympiacos. Asderis became the first coach in the history of Greek football to work in all the clubs of thebig three (followed byHelmut Senekowitsch andJacek Gmoch) and at Olympiacos more mature than ever, he won thechampionship, as well as theCup in 1947.[10][11] Asderis was also part of the technical staff during three of the four spells of Negrepontis on the bench ofGreece. In 1951 and at the age of 50, the Asderis retired from active role, having done everything in football as a footballer, as a coach and as a referee. He had written his name in the history of both AEK Athens and Olympiacos with a domestic double.
Asderis had a wife name Marika who was an agent of Panathinaikos.[4] He lived a life full of football that ended on 22 March 1975, when he left his last breath in Athens.[12][13]
Pera Club
AEK Athens
Olympiacos