KYRIAKOS PAPADOPOULOS

Kyriakos Papadopoulos     21     Defender     Schalke     Greece

2013 has been…

…non-existent.  In late November last year he suffered a nasty injury, badly torn ligaments in his left knee, and after a couple of operations he looked he would return to action sometime this October. The comeback was eventually made in the U23s in November and unfortunately even that proved too soon as he immediately incurred some more damage and a more specialized recovery program has now been started. This year has been a complete non-starter, things can only can better.

What next?

Despite the injury he’s still a man perpetually linked with a move to pastures new. In the summer there was interest from Liverpool that was reciprocated by the player himself who it’s believed wants to move to England. They will be back in the summer if you believe all that you read in the papers but there’ll be competition. AC Milan, Manchester City, Zenit, Man United and Arsenal are all said to be very interested but to be frank, he would do well to ignore all of them and concentrate solely on getting back to full fitness. He may well be back in action by the January window and there’s no doubt he’ll end up with the odd transfer story again, but his focus must be on recovery and we hope the distractions are all ignored in pursuit of this aim.

We hope he returns to his best as he’s both an excellent defender and a very ambitious footballer. He’s already made his mark for his massive potential and his volcanic temper (it’s worth YouTubing the moment international team-mate Georgios Samaras grabs him by the throat, he returns the gesture with a stare that is responsible for half the world’s global warming problems) and there’s a very bright future ahead we’re sure. This year has been a write off, spend the next six months getting back onto that plane to the summer World Cup.

“Hampered by injury, Papadopoulos wasn't able to show off his talents much in 2013 but the fact that Schalke are still trying to hold on to him despite continuous outside interest speaks volumes of his talent” - Cristian Nyari, bundesligafanatic.com

U     Impossible to mark when no football played, a really good player before, here’s hoping he gets back to his very best