AEK ATHENS followers marked their return to their historic floor after a 19-year exile with an extravagant present of flares.

AEK had been with out a residence since 2003 when their earlier house owners demolished Nikos Goumas in Nea Filadelfeia claiming it had been badly broken from an enormous earthquake in 1999.

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The Greek giants initially deliberate to resurrect it by 2004, in time for the Olympic Video games in Athens, however that aim was by no means achieved and reconstructions would continually be met by totally different hurdles.

The favored membership then performed all of its matches on the Olympic Stadium – dubbed OAKA – and underwent immense distress throughout these years.

All of it got here to a head in 2013 when AEK’s severe monetary issues caught up and the membership was shockingly relegated within the third division.

Nonetheless, legendary proprietor Dimitris Melissanidis returned on the wheel and took the workforce again to the primary division in simply two years.

AEK went on to win the Greek Cup in 2016 and conquered their first tile in 24 years in 2018, which led them to the Champions League group stage.

And now the Greek giants lastly have a soccer residence on the stadium dubbed Agia Sophia.

After an enormous opening ceremony on Friday, AEK performed their first ever recreation of their new soccer residence on Monday towards Ionikos.

The sport was bought out with over 31,000 followers in attendance, a whole bunch of which lit purple flares to mark their huge return.

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And Matias Almeyda’s males did not disappoint as they picked up a snug 4-1 victory.

Mijat Gacinovic registered a brace, whereas Levi Garcia and Sergio Araujo had been each heading in the right direction earlier than Christos Eleftheriadis netted the guests’ comfort aim in a historic evening.