Giorgos Kostikos was born in Tashkent on 26 April 1958. He started his career at the ranks of Pierikos and joined their first team, competing in the second tier back then, at the age of 15, in 1973-74. On 7 October 1973, he made his senior debut in their away encounter against Niki Polygyros, playing for the first 45 minutes. He went on to become a vital cog of the Katerini outfit and starred in their promotion to top flight in 1975. In 23 November 1975 he scored his maiden goal in the league \u2013against PAOK at Toumba. He scored once again versus the \u201cDouble-Headed Eagle\u201d, on 20 March 1977 in Pierikos\u2019 2-1 defeat at Katerini. He then joined PAOK for nine years (1977-1986) and celebrated the league title of 1985 with them.<\/p>\n
He earned his first of 35 caps with Greece while still at Pierikos, on 23 March 1977, in a friendly encounter against Czechoslovakia. He was a member of the Euro 1980 squad and participated in all three encounters of Greece in the finals.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1986 he moved to Olympiacos and won the Greek League of 1986-87. He spent 18 months at Piraeus and then transferred to Diagoras Rhodes where he hang up his boots in 1989.<\/p>\n
He features in the top five of all-time scorers\u2019 list of PAOK, having conjured up 80 goals in 233 league appearances. He served as head coach of the \u201cDouble-Headed Eagle\u201d in 2005-06 and players such as Lazaros Christodoulopoulos, Sotiris Balafas, Stelios Iliadis and Christos Melissis earned their stripes under his tutelage. Nowadays he works for PAOK’s scouting department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A very important player of PAOK was born on this day, 57 years ago, on 26 April 1958.","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":183226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4289],"tags":[3766,235,4361,3766,4236,4236,4309,4361,4364,4400,4400,4401],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n