Theofanis Gekas

Theofanis Gekas

Personal information
Date of birth	May 23, 1980
Place of birth	Larissa, Greece
Height	180 cm
Club information
Current club	Bayer Leverkusen
Position	Striker
Professional clubs*
1998-2001 2001-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-	AE Larisa 1964 Kallithea FC Panathinaikos VfL Bochum Bayer Leverkusen	61 (15) 99 (46) 46 (16) 30 (20)
* Professional club caps and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of April 8, 2007. ** National team caps and goals correct as of March 28, 2007.

Theofanis Gekas (greek: Θεοφάνης Γκέκας, born May 23, 1980, Larissa, Greece) is a footballer who currently plays for Bayer 04 Leverkusen. He has been very successful during the last years being top goalscorer of the Greek League (17 goals) in 2005 and runner-up in 2006 (15 goals). He has also won 14 caps of the Greek National Team. Gekas has been described as a prolific forward with a vision for goal.

In Greece

Theofanis Gekas started his professional career at his local club AE Larisa FC. (Greek Second Division) After three years there, he moved to Kallithea FC in the summer of 2001. In his first season Kallithea was promoted to the Greek first division. Gekas had scored 30 goals in 87 second division matches.

Gekas kept scoring goals, so the Greek top clubs became interested in him. After scoring 32 goals in 73 matches Gekas moved to Panathinaikos during the 2005 winter break. At his new club Gekas kept up scoring and became top goal scorer of the Greek league in 2005. (17 goals) He shot into the national squad, where he made his debut in the 2-0 World Cup qualifying victory against Albania in March 2005 , despite never having represented the Greek national side at junior level. In the Confederations Cup 2005 Gekas was part of the team of the European champion.

With Panathinaikos, Gekas scored 23 goals in 41 appearances. In the season 2005/2006 Gekas made his debut in the UEFA Champions League and came second in the Greek top goalscorers list.

In 2007, Gekas was the top goal scorer in the Bundesliga, having scored 20 Goals in 30 Games.

At VfL Bochum

Gekas celebrates a goal for Bochum

The German Second division club VfL Bochum was already interested in Gekas in the spring of 2006, but Panathinaikos wanted 1.5 Million Euro for its forward which was too much money for the German club.

But in the summer of 2006 Panathinaikos signed Greek top scorer Dimitris Salpigidis from PAOK Thessaloniki (One of the reasons was that Gekas didn’t want to sign a long-term contract). As part of the deal Gekas would be transferred to PAOK. But Gekas refused to be transferred to the club. Panathinakos owner Giorgos Vardinogiannis felt personally insulted and loaned Gekas to newly-promoted VfL Bochum for only 300,000 Euro.

VfL Bochum was fighting against relegation that season, but in a short period Gekas became one of the stars of the team and popular among the fans. He scored 20 goals in the league in 30 games and two in the cup. Coach Marcel Koller described him in November 2006 as their "life insurance."

Gekas gathered the second largest number of votes, in a poll of German footballers, for Bundesliga MVP, after Werder Bremen's Diego.

Bayer Leverkusen acquired him after the 2007 season.

Trivia

• Gekas was a successful Greco-Roman wrestler in his youth. But his father advised him to concentrate on football.
• Gekas is the only of two players to have topped the Greek scoring charts in a season in which he played for two teams.

Links

• Article in German sports magazine Kicker (In German)

A portion of content for this article is credited to Wikipedia. Content under GNU Free Documentation License(GFDL)