Our next opponents: Olympiacos will have to make do without overhead kick star

Position

Olympiacos are back in the UEFA Champions League for the first time in five years and for the 20th time in total. On matchday 6, the most successful Greek club with 48 league titles and 29 domestic cup wins clocked up their first victory in the league phase. With the 1-0 victory at Kairat Almaty (Kazakhstan), the Red and Whites climbed to 29th place in the table and can now once again harbour hopes of making the play-offs. With five points, the team under Spanish coach José Luis Mendilibar are now just two points behind FC Copenhagen in 24th place.

Olympiacos could have won by a much higher margin in Kazakhstan, but were repeatedly thwarted by the impressive Almaty goalkeeper Anarbekov. However, he then made a crucial mistake when he let a shot from Gelson Martins from a tight angle in at the near post. "We dominated the game and put in a solid performance in every area," said Mendilibar after the match.

Prior to that, his team had fought a high-intensity duel with Real Madrid in the UCL. In front of 32,000 frenetic fans at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium, the hosts took an early lead through Chiquinho, before Kylian Mbappé turned the game in Madrid's favour with a hat-trick within seven minutes. And yet Olympiacos stayed in the game, reduced the deficit to 3-2 through Taremi, conceded a fourth goal through Mbappé and came back once more after El Kaabi scored to reduce the deficit again. Olympiacos even had opportunities to equalise in the closing stages. "We never switched off at any point in the game, managed to hit back twice and had chances to snatch a point right up to the last minute," said Mendilibar, praising his team, who had already put in a convincing performance in their previous home game against PSV Eindhoven. The Dutch side only managed to draw 1-1 in stoppage time after the hosts had taken an early lead through Gelson Martins.

Defending champions Olympiacos are once again among the big favourites in the Greek Super League this term. The record champions have only lost one of their 16 games so far. To date, they have twelve wins and three draws to their name. They were without a game last weekend as the match at Asteras Tripolis was postponed. As a result, Olympiacos slipped from first to third place in the table, at least temporarily, with rivals PAOK Thessaloniki and AEK Athens going above them. Olympiacos were eliminated at the quarter-final stage in the national cup competition last week, losing 2-0 at home to PAOK. "We didn’t produce a good performance," said Mendilibar. Now it is important to react and fight for a win against Bayer 04 in order to keep their hopes of progressing in Europe alive.

Personnel

José Luis Mendilibar took over at Olympiacos in February 2024. The 64-year-old had previously worked in the Spanish top flight for 19 years. He won the UEFA Europa League with Sevilla in 2023. And success was not long in coming in Athens either. Just three months after taking office, Mendilibar won the first ever European trophy for a Greek club with Olympiacos - the UEFA Conference League. In the final in Athens at the end of May 2024, his team beat Fiorentina 1-0 after extra time thanks to a late goal from Ayoub El Kaabi. The next trophies followed a year later with the national double of championship and cup. And 2026 also began with a triumph: the Red and Whites beat OFI 3-0 after extra time in the Greek Super Cup.

Mendilibar usually opts for a 4-2-3-1 formation. Lorenzo Pirola and Panagiotis Retsos usually form the centre of defence in front of goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis. The latter has a Leverkusen past. Retsos was under contract with Bayer 04 for four and a half years between 2017 and January 2022, but was loaned out to Sheffield United and AS St.-Étienne. Retsos made 43 appearances for the Werkself. In the summer of 2022, the 27-year-old returned to his first club Olympiacos, where he has been captain for several years now.

Other regulars, such as the two Portuguese forwards Chiquinho (30) and Gelson Martins (30), also have a lot of experience. Or the Spaniard Dani Garcia (35), who is often deployed in defensive midfield alongside Olympiacos homegrown player Christos Mouzakitis. The two most prolific goalscorers in the team, Ayoub El Kaabi (32) and Mehdi Taremi (33), have played for a number of clubs. Taremi came to Olympiacos from Inter Milan in the summer of 2025. The Iranian previously played for FC Porto for four years and he faced Bayer 04 in the UCL in 2022. Porto won both games against the Werkself in the group stage (2-0; 3-0), and Taremi was one of the outstanding players with two goals and two assists in the two games. Morocco's El Kaabi recently caused a sensation at the Africa Cup of Nations in his home country: The centre-forward scored two spectacular goals with overhead kicks in both the opening match against Comoros and against Zambia. El Kaabi was again in Morocco's starting eleven for the final on Saturday evening - the hosts lost 1-0 to Senegal after extra time -  but the Olympiacos top scorer (12 league goals so far) will miss the game against the Werkself on Tuesday.

Problems

Olympiacos have had problems in defence, particularly in the 6-1 defeat at Barcelona and the 4-3 loss to Real Madrid. The defenders around captain Panagiotis Retsos found it particularly difficult in one-v-one duels with fast dribblers such as Mbappé, Vinicius Junior or the Barca stars Fermin, Lamine Yamal and Marcus Rashford. Most recently, in the quarter-final exit in the national cup against PAOK, there was also a lack of creativity in attack. "We weren't able to create any goalscoring opportunities," said Mendilibar.

Performers

The coach favours pressing football: "The ball has to get into the opponent's penalty area quickly". Although the team is now missing El Kaabi, Taremi, the Ukrainian Roman Yaremchuk and the Portuguese Daniel Podence there are still plenty of players at his disposal who are all-round talents and always good for goals. The same applies to Chiquinho and Gelson Martins. Olympiacos fans regularly create a special atmosphere at their home ground Georgios Karaiskakis. Until the 4-3 defeat to Real Madrid, Olympiacos had not lost at home for over a year and a half. Bayer 04 do not have fond memories of the only European game against the Red and Whites to date: In the 2002/03 season, the Werkself lost 6-2 at Olympiacos in the first Champions League group game - although the match was played at the Rizoupoli Stadium in Athens at the time. It remains their highest-ever victory in the Champions League.