Things We Learned on Google Today- Olympiacos Has Won 38 Greek Soccer Titles

Today's soccer team of the week on this blog is Olympiacos (or Olympiakos), a Greek soccer powerhouse based in the port city of Piraeus, near Athens.

The image above is sort of a joke as Priest Christos, who is really a Greek Orthodox priest, is a fan for one of Olympiacos' main rivals, PAOK FC (Thessaloniki) and apparently the priest's devoution to soccer madness has caused him legal problems.

Ironically, the colors of PAOK FC are identical to those worn by the Turkish team Besiktas (Istanbul), and I suppose this is a good time to mention that I am a Turkish-American, though I prefer Galatasaray over Besiktas.

Of course, what this means to those of you born after 1974 when Turkey and Greece went to war over Cyprus, is that I will really have to spell all these long and difficult Greek names correctly!

Olympiacos is also in the UEFA Champions League, and they are in Group F, a group of death, featuring such traditional Euro powers as Arsenal (England), Dortmund (Germany) and Marseille (France). Their next game is against Arsenal on Dec. 11. The English premiere league power has several international greats, including Robin van Persie from the Netherlands and Andrei Arshavin from Russia.

But, the Greek team has its own impressive roster, with the likes of Ioannis Fetfatzidis (whew, hope I spelled his name right!) who has been called 'the Greek Messi' in reference to Argentinian soccer superstar Lionel Messi. The Greek Messi scored the lone goal in the team's 1-0 win over Marseilles on Nov. 23.

Domestically, things are looking better for the team with 38 Greek titles, as they bounced back from a 2-0 loss to astera Tripoli with a 6-0 drubbing of Doxa Dramas. We believe the team is slated to play rival Panaitokolis (Athens) over the weekend. The third major rival for Olympiacos is AEK Athens.

Hooliganism is a problem in Greek soccer, as is the case in England and Turkey as well, as figths between fans of rival clubs have become violent and even deadly in some instances.

The captain of the current squad is Vasilis Toosidis and the co-captain is Avroam Papadopoulos (whew, again!). But, the team has a highly diverse international roster inclusing Swedish soccer star Olef Mellberg and French player Francois Modesto.

In addition, Olympiacos features five Spanish nationals, two Algerian players and two Serbian futbolers.

The team is currently in third place in both the domestic league and the UEFA Champions League.

The two teams on top of the Greek Premiere League are as of right now first-place Panathinaikos and second-place AEK Athens.

SIDEBAR: Interestingly enough as we were putting this piece together, we heard through a Terry Gross interview with Jeffrey Rosen from "The New Republic" yesterday on NPR's "Fresh Air," that in 2007, Youtube was blocked in Turkey. I was always aware of what happened, but I didn't realize the infamous Youtube videos which hurled insults at Mustafa Kemal Ataturk were, at least in part, posted by Greek soccer militants.

This incident put Nicole Wong of Google, which owns Youtube, in a very awkward disposition. As it is, Youtube was banned in Turkey as a result of the videos. We are not sure if the ban is still in place or not.