Ketsbaia, my lord… – Anorthosis Famagusta in the Champions League

Temuri Ketsbaia of the newly recognized (by Russia only) independent nation Abkhazia or, if you believe the rest of the world, from Georgia, has led a minion of European football into the CL.

Anorthosis Famagusta are champions of Cyprus, a title they have won twice under Ketsbaia’s leadership. Ketsbaia first joined them as a player in 1992, before he moved on to AEK Athens and most famously Newcastle. He returned to them in 2002 after brief spells with Wolves and Dundee. The last anyone heard from him and his club was probably when they got past Trabzonspor to get to the last round of qualifications for the CL in 2005, falling to Rangers 4-1 on aggregate.

Some interesting facts about Anorthosis Famagusta:

Famagusta on the East coast, Lacarna on the south

• They are actually not currently located in Famagusta, which is in the Turkish part on the East coast of Cyprus, but in Larnaca, on the South coast. They relocated there in 1974 after the Turkish invasion (forgive me if this is not the politically correct term for the conflict). They still have a home stadium in Famagusta, but it is abandoned and is “in a bad condition.”
• They play their home games in Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium, which holds about 10 000 supporters.
• The Cypriot League is called the Marfin Laiki League (sponsored by the Marfin Popular bank). There are 14 teams in the league. APOEL and Omonia are the biggest clubs with 19 league titles each, Anorthosis Famagusta has 13 titles, including five titles in six seasons between 1994 and 2000.
• The population of Cyprus is about 800 000. It’s a fairly rich nation with a GDP per capita of about 27 thousand dollars, which is slightly more than South Korea, Israel and New Zealand, but slightly less than Italy, Greece and Spain (source: World Bank).
• The Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on July 20, 1974, was a Turkish military operation against a coup which had been staged by the Cypriot National Guard against president Makarios III with the intention of annexing the island to Greece, but the invasion ended up with Turkey occupying a considerable area on the north part of it and establishing a government on it that only Turkey recognizes (copy/paste from Wikipedia).

Anorthosis Famagusta knocked out Rapid Wien (4-3 on aggregate, 3-0 at home and 1-3 away) and Olympiacos (3-1 on aggregate, 3-0 at home and 0-1 away) in the qualification rounds, so they thorougly deserve their place. It’s the first time a Cypriot team has qualified for the group stages, so congratulations to them! Here’s a video clip from their 3-0 win at home, complete with some ridiculously bad local music.

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Tags: Anorthosis Famagusta, Champions League, Cyprus, Dundee, Georgia, Newcastle, Rangers, Temuri Ketsbaia, Wolves

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