The great leader, the leader of the Eagles, has been flying high since yesterday, “walking in the air”, rising to catch a header and kick the ball into the net. Mimis Papaioannou has taken his rightful place alongside the other great players of Greek football and his form in one of the four pillars of Agia Sophia will be the foundation on which the history of AEK will rest.

Starting at 9 a.m., a flower-in-hand crowd, along with the Union’s “family”, football veterans of all teams, and all football people, said goodbye to him at Holy Trinity Church in New Philadelphia. Over there, opposite the entrance to the AEK stadium, where his figure dominated, and the old roof, which “cunning” in every goal and celebration.

The emotions were great, especially when his football mentor Kostas Nestoridis came to say goodbye to him for the last time. At the age of 93, the “Nestor” of Greek football, with which they flourished in the 60s, bent over the image of a coffin draped with the AEK flag. “I called him playful,” he managed to blurt out.

AJC President Dimitris Melissanidis was equally touched, as were his big rivals but true friends Mimis Domasos and Antonis Antoniadis.

“When we hear the AEK anthem, it will never be the same again, because the person who sang it is no longer with us,” said Metropolitan Nea of ​​Ionia, Philadelphia, Heraklion and Chalcedon, Gabriel, who presided over the initial procession.

Hundreds of AEK fans who were in the church accompanied him before he headed to his last residence singing the team’s thousand-song anthem. His own anthem, his own song, with which he will forever remain in the minds and hearts of Unitarians everywhere, in all latitudes and longitudes of the Earth.

His funeral took place in a close family circle at the Markopoulou Mesogaya Municipal Cemetery.