Olympiacos captain to miss Champions League match against Kairat

Panagiotis Retsos in the Champions League match against Real Madrid / Photo: Instagram/@panosretsos

Captain of the Greek football club Olympiacos, Panagiotis Retsos, will skip the upcoming UEFA Champions League match against Kairat Almaty, the Greek sports outlet SDNA reported.

The 27-year-old center-back suffered a muscle injury in a Super League Greece match against Panetolikos (1-0), which, according to the outlet, turned out to be more serious than initially expected. The player will miss at least two weeks.

The club’s manager, Jose Luis Mendilibar, now has to decide who will pair with Lorenzo Pirola in central defense. Most likely, Alexios Kalogeropoulos — who substituted Retsos after the injury — will enter the pitch.

Retsos’s career

Panagiotis Retsos is a product of Olympiacos’s academy. Playing for the club, he became champion of Greece twice, in 2017 and 2025, and won the Greek Football Cup in 2025. On the European stage, Retsos won the UEFA Europa Conference League in 2024. Over the season, the Greek footballer played 16 matches in which he scored two goals.

Retsos made his debut for Greece’s national team in August 2017 and has played 19 matches since, in which he hasn’t stood out with goal contributions.

Context

The match between Kairat and Olympiacos will take place on Dec. 9 at Astana Arena in Astana. The Almaty club’s management has approved the transition of home matches from Almaty to Astana due to weather conditions, with UEFA’s approval.

After five matchdays of the 2025-26 Champions League, Kairat stands in 35th place out of 36 with one point, as the Kazakh team lost 1-4 to Sporting CP, 0-5 to Real Madrid, 1-2 to Inter Milan and 2-3 to FC Copenhagen, as well as drew 0-0 with Pafos FC.

Olympiacos is 33rd in the table with two points. The Greek club drew with Pafos (0-0) and PSV (1-1) and suffered defeats to Arsenal (0-2), FC Barcelona (1-6) and Real Madrid (3-4).