Countless goals have left their mark on the club’s history in the century since the founding of Olympiacos. But the one that will forever be remembered as THE goal was scored just a few months ago. Santiago Hezze delivered a precise cross and Ayoub El-Kaabi set off for the Fiorentina goal like a slingshot. And it was at that precise moment that time seemed to shudder to a halt. And to stay frozen for what felt like an age.
A play that recalled hand-to-hand combat, three on three, just 28 seconds from start to finish. The first attempt missed. “Don’t stop, play.” We hardly dare breathe. Our eyes glued to the action, sensing the hour of our vindication is at hand. The ball shoots straight from Santiago Hezze’s feet to El-Kaabi’s head in a move so impeccably choreographed, you’d guess the two had performed it countless times before. And soaring through the air sideways on, El-Kaabi sends it straight into the back of the net. Have you ever had a memory play in your head in slow motion?
Down the millennia, whenever people have taken part in an event as spectators, that participation can never be weighed up in a balanced or rational way. At least, none of those that have gone down in history as redemptive, as in such cases it is up to emotion to determine the course of reason. It is the heart, in other words, that determines how we participate in the communion, a shared activity focused primarily on a…goal.
With a burning passion that seems—or rather is—synthetic and yet inexhaustible. To find spaces in which passions, loves and feelings of vindication have space to be expressed. Yes, the vindication one can seek in the most unlikely repositories of memory and find in a moment of ecstasy. Redemption sometimes stems from the verses of poets. And sometimes, it’s achieved on a football pitch by means of a header.
A goal. A miracle
The apparent character of a work of art is simultaneously its mode and praxis of communion: its methexis. And the canvas painted on 29 May 2024 contains an absolute happiness. How many surges of emotion could Ayoub El-Kaabi’s goal in the Conference League final against Fiorentina have unleashed? I wonder what hues one would use to convey the miracle?
Look closely at the scene behind the “golden” goal the moment the ball hits the back of the net. That moment to crown all moments, against a background of seething red. A single glance is enough to provide an answer. The Moroccan stirred every sea in the world, and the sea of Olympiacos fans before all else.
A header that would earn the Red and Whites a European title; a header that would become a work of art for millions of Olympiacos fans and will be remembered forever. Everywhere and forever.
The moment was unique and can never be repeated, which is what makes it so emotive, too. Things like that don’t happen every day, brother, and if anything is certain in this world (or almost so) it’s this: El-Kaabi’s header isn’t ‘his’ alone; the cross wasn’t delivered by Ese only.
Millions of Olympiacos fans sent that cross sailing toward the Moroccan’s head in the 116th minute… and millions of Olympiacos fans made the header that sent the ball into the back of the net. As the sea of red and white poured out of the stands, the fans were participating in the methexis in an unprecedented way.
All together for a header, so the Legend would finally get what it so deserved. And that human surge was given what it so wanted just before the clock struck to mark their club’s first century. The communion was complete and as emotive as can be. El Kaabi’s header was a work of art.
Night becomes day in front of Piraeus’ Municipal Theater after THAT goal; a few hours later, the European Cup winners will receive a heroes’ welcome here
The invisible thread
In his book “What we think when we think about football”, the English philosopher and football fanatic Simon Critchley explains in a very simple but meaningful way what it means to be a fan. It’s living for a history consisting of moments, he says. “Being a fan” means “creating and owning a story like that, or, better yet, co-creating it and being able to share it with others” and fully expecting it to be enriched over time with the creation and addition of new moments.
It is this sharing of moments which together, as a whole, form our truth that is learned and passed on as a badge of faith. A few seconds each, which is as long as it takes to score, to lose or concede a goal, or to be scared by a player twisting their ankle and a body sprawled on the pitch. As long as it takes to see a header executed like a grand jeté and a poor kid from Casablanca transformed before your eyes into something akin to Baryshnikov with a football.
And this shared history is the invisible thread that binds the fans of a team together, no matter how different we may in terms of origins, culture or class. It is these moments in our shared life together, when we are collectively attuned to the same state of mind, that unite us into a community united in one faith. And what makes football different from any other spectacle is that we, the crowd, are more than spectators; we aren’t just watching a performance, we are active participants in it—performing a role; sharing joys, sorrows and rivalries; giving free rein to our instincts and a form of communication unrelated to whatever other linguistic codes we may call our own.
The ritual of memory
The fact that football’s technical elements are ultimately secondary is all the proof we need that football is imbued, for its fans, with this sense of historicity. As time goes by, the majority of games and their technical details are forgotten—they do not remain a shared affair which we define as our heritage. What remains and is incorporated into the history of our shared moments is the magical way in which stands and pitch become attuned—the passion that feeds the whole stadium; that we and the players share and amplify; that’s conveyed upon seemingly supernatural waves via televisions and radios to those far away.
And when we’re all together, wherever we may be, we all surrender utterly, willingly and happily to the anxiety of waiting on the edge of our seats for that singular moment we will be recounting and sharing for the rest of our days. All the rest—all that came before, the passes and crosses, the images and smells, complaints and minor satisfactions—our memories will shelve one day as they are replaced by new ones.
And for those of us who live for Olympiacos, this is how those seconds in which Ayoub El Kaabi’s header found the net will live forever in our truth.
After all, it wasn’t just a goal. It was the moment when time stopped and pulses quickened. When the first 116 minutes of the game faded to nothing as the moment we were waiting for so anxiously arrived and expectation was turned into reality.
A strand of red and white DNA
A day may come when we no longer remember what we were yelling, what we were wearing or eating, what was troubling us and who was annoying us that night. When our memories of the difficulties that got us there, and the decisions by which we overcame them, will be nothing more than a footnote in the history of a European Cup.
Only the things that really matter will remain, as a strand of red-and-white DNA connecting the stadium to fans’ homes, squares to cafes, the grandfathers and fathers who took us to the stadium for the first time to the kids who probably didn’t realize a day would come when they, too, would say “I was there”.
Time resumed when we became one again. The crowd in the stands, the joyful yells ringing out around our neighborhoods, the honking of car horns in the streets everywhere from Piraeus to Crete, from Didymoteicho to everywhere Greeks call home. Time resumed, and we became one with the Number 9 as he celebrated his golden header and formed a victory huddle with his teammates. Time resumed when the moment had been etched in our memory and turned into ritual.
