The Europa League match between Frankfurter Eintracht and Olympiacos Piraeus this Thursday (9:00 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Europa League and on RTL) is a premiere on paper. The two teams have never faced each other in a European competition.

One of the reasons for this is that the Greek series champions have recently mostly been allowed to compete in the Champions League, while Eintracht had to be content with participating in the Europa League.

Also this season, Olympiacos, which is dubbed a "legend" due to its dominance in the Greek league, started in the qualifying round for the premier class, but was surprisingly eliminated from the Bulgarian representative Ludogorez Razgrad.

On closer inspection, however, one can still find a connection between the Hessians and the Hellenes.

Even if it was more than three decades ago: In the summer of 1988, Lajos Detari moved from the Main to the port sung by Melina Merkouri for the record sum of 17 million marks at the time.

The Hungarian had just scored Eintracht with a free kick to win the cup.

Club owner Vangelis Marinakis

Shortly afterwards, he was cheered by more than ten thousand Olympiacos supporters in front of the Piraeus City Hall.

The brother of the eccentric and later volatile club president, Jorgos Koskotas, is said to have presented Detari, who ultimately only stayed in Piraeus for two years, a blank check.

Associated with the request to enter your salary yourself.

Today, such business practices are no longer the order of the day at Olympiakos.

The omnipotent shipowner Vangelis Marinakis has been the club owner for eleven years and has given the association solid financial framework conditions.

But he can also act eccentrically and erratically from time to time.

One of his first official acts in August 2010 was the dismissal of the German Ewald Lienen after only fifty days as a trainer.

After he missed qualifying for the Champions League with the “red and whites” at the time, Marinakis told him by phone not to return with the team from Israel. Lienen's successor was the Basque Ernesto Valverde, who won several titles with the team before ending up at FC Barcelona via detours.

Another decisive move by Marinakis was the engagement of Cristian Karembeu as a strategic advisor on the club's board of directors. The Frenchman, who became world champion in his own country in 1998 with the “equipe tricolore”, was already a player at Olympiakos from 2001 to 2004 and has an excellent network in world football that Piraeus can draw on to this day. It was Karembeu who directed the current coach, Pedro Martins, to Piraeus three years ago. The Portuguese has given the team a clear signature.

Karembeu has repeatedly stressed that Olympiacos are capable of winning the Europa League. However, it remains to be seen whether the current squad is predestined for this. After all: the start of this year's competition was promising. Two wins, over Antwerp (2: 1) and Fenerbahce (3: 0) are recorded after two match days. The team - here too, Karembeu's influence is noticeable - there are a number of francophone players as well as three current Greek national players.

The most prominent Greek in the Olympiakos squad should also be fondly remembered by German football fans: Sokratis Papastathopoulos. He moved to Piraeus from Arsenal FC in London in January this year. The former defender from Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen usually forms the central defense with the Senegalese Pape Abou Cissé, behind is the Czech national goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik. Mady Camara from Guinea plays a major role in midfield. The 24-year-old is said to have moved into the focus of Eintracht Frankfurt three years ago. Ultimately, however, Francois Modesto, the French chief scout of Olympiakos, snapped.

Meanwhile Camara is one of the most valuable players of the Greeks.

As his adjutant in the midfield center, Pierre Kunde was signed by FSV Mainz in the summer.

But the Cameroonian international doesn't seem to have arrived properly yet and has often only been a substitute so far.

However, it works without him.

In the league, where Olympiakos won the title nine times in the past eleven years, they are back at the top after six match days.

A tricky task that unity awaits.

Detari sees it that way too.

Before the duel between his previous clubs, the 58-year-old is diplomatic: “I can't venture a forecast.

Everything is open, ”said the former midfield strategist, who will probably travel from Budapest to watch the game in Frankfurt with his old friends Charly Körbel and Andy Möller.