2008–09 AEK Athens F.C. season


AEK Athens F.C. competes for the fiftieth consecutive season in the Greek topflight. They started their European campaign in the UEFA Cup Second qualifying round after finishing second in last season's playoffs.

Overview

After the end of an indifferent season, the team initially finished in first place in the league, but after the court case between Apollon Kalamaria and Olympiacos for the illegal use of a player in the 1-0 Apollon Kalamaria win earlier in the season, Olympiacos were awarded the 3 points in a court hearing, thus finishing 2 points ahead of AEK. AEK then finished 2nd in the national playoffs which saw them qualify for the UEFA Cup.
The club sold 18,200 season tickets. The new season started nervously, since the team was constantly under-performing during friendly games. The apparent nervousness reached a new high, when the team was defeated at home by underdogs Omonia at the first leg of the UEFA Cup Second qualifying round, followed by the chairman Demis Nikolaidis' resignation announcement for the end of the season, and Rivaldo's sudden intention to leave the club in order to join FC Bunyodkor from Uzbekistan. AEK was eventually eliminated from the UEFA Cup. Despite the disappointment, the team responded surprisingly well and put an assertive performance against fierce rivals Panathinaikos by beating them 2-1 at home during matchday 1, but poor performances and results from then on left AEK in a difficult situation. Head coach Giorgos Donis was eager to leave the club, but president Demis Nikolaidis did not allow him to leave. Nevertheless, Nikolaidis left due to these disappointing results and after a controversy with the club's supporters Original 21, leaving the presidency to member of the D.C., Nikos Koulis and Takis Kanellopoulos.
However, the series of disappointing results continued, bringing anger and insecure situations for everyone in the team. The first to be hit by this wave of disappointment and with the council of the team upset, was the coach Giorgos Donis, who was asked to leave the team. On November 21, 2008, AEK hired Dušan Bajević as head coach for the third time.
On 2 May 2009, AEK participated in the Greek Cup final at Athens Olympic Stadium in
an effort to obtain the Greek Cup title for 14th time. However the result did not go in their favour after losing 14-15 on penalties vs their arch rival Olympiacos.

Events

Squad information

Players out on loan

International players

Squad changes

In:
Total spending: €7,775M
Out:
Total income: €6,91M

Squad stats

Notes

Overall

Club

Management

Kit

Other information

Manager stats

Only competitive matches are counted. Wins, losses and draws are results at the final whistle; the results of penalty shootouts are not counted.

Competitions

Super League Greece

Classification

This is the classification of the regular season:

Results summary

Results by round

Play-off table

The teams started the play-offs with the following number of points:

Matches

Pre-season

Competitive