I first heard his voice on Saturday afternoon. April 11, 1970. Greek television for the first time broadcast live a football match. FA Cup final, queen in the stands with a hat, Leeds in white, Chelsea in black (he was blue but looked black on black and white TV). The match ended in a draw, the final was replayed – there were no extra time or penalties then. Many years later, I read that this is considered one of the most brutal and inept endings. Weirdness. I was under the impression that I saw beautiful choreography on (dirty) grass. Probably because I first saw football on the small screen. Or maybe it was his voice. Who had the grace to perfect, beautify everything that he described.

Giannis Diakoyannis was a strange, lonely figure in the media fauna. A man who studied music in Paris and broadcast football matches on Greek television. A man who, with his rare erudition and culture, invested not only the performances of Pele or Cruyff at a high level, but also moments from the titanic battle between Fostiras and Proodeftius, at the Athletic Kyriaki. Who could fit into the description of a football game without sounding weird or sophisticated, a little reference to some opera or some literary character.

And this, I think, was his great contribution. With its genuine cosmopolitanism, for generations before the Internet and satellite TV, it was the only and valuable window to the outside world. In the world of European football and its great figures. In the world of athletics, first of all, big sport. He said that football is a game. Athletics is a sport. “Give me one Olympic 100m final and you’ll have all the Champions Cup finals.”

“Give me one Olympic 100m final and take all the Champions Cup finals,” he said. Because football is a game. Athletics is a sport.”

And yet Diakoyannis will be remembered by those of us who grew up with his voice, primarily because with the same passion and kindness he clothed the broadcast of the match between Piri and Amantio of his beloved Real Madrid and the description of a bad football Sunday. where Koudas, Grammos or Botinos survived several kicks in some nasty Greek stadium. In a sense, he defined both sports journalism (I would say journalism in general) and the country’s attitude to sports for an entire era. He put a mark on the wall, which remained there. And there will always be someone who will try to achieve this.

Everyone knows him as the man who founded and defined sports broadcasting in Greece. But he was something more: one of the cornerstones of Greek television. For the first time, his voice covered the match on television in the summer of 1966. EIR broadcast World Cup matches in England. These were canned games, yesterday, which Diakoyannis saw, of course, for the first time and described “live” from Zappeio’s studio, and the audience usually watched standing on the sidewalk, in the window of an electrical goods store. At that time, this corresponded to 1.5 televisions per 1000 inhabitants, and for comparison, one car per 45 inhabitants. It was still the prehistory of Greek television. His story begins in 1970. The broadcast of the FA Cup final, the broadcast of the AC Milan-Ajax final immediately after (by Diacoyannis, of course) and, above all, the broadcast of the World Cup in Mexico, Pelé’s World Cup, turned on the television. everyone’s life. By the end of that year, more than half a million devices were in operation. The voice of Diakoyannis clothed the coming of age of Greek television. I wish he kept something else from his example as he grew up.

The news of his death, yesterday, many of us were united by a wave of nostalgia. Those, in particular, whose lives intersected with his not only through the TV glass, we were united by a wave of sincere emotions. He was one of the kindest people I have ever met in a newspaper office, on the radio, or in a television studio. “Every time I meet you, it’s a holiday,” I told him one day. He asked me why. I hesitated to tell him. Let me admit it now. Because every time his voice echoed in my ears, describing “the goal of Camara, the goal of Aristides Camara…”, the third goal in the semi-final against Red Star. Now I’m listening again…