{"id":12538,"date":"2026-06-24T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=12538"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:01:00","slug":"shock-in-greek-soccer-takis-gkoniadis-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=12538","title":{"rendered":"Shock in Greek soccer\u2014Takis Gkoniadis has died"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Takis Gkoni\u00e1s, a former  soccer player soccer player<\/a> and , following a serious <a href=\"https:\/\/tomanifesto.gr\/ygeia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">health issue.<\/p>\n<p>Deep mourning swept through <strong>Greek soccer<\/strong> following the news of the death of <strong>Takis Gkonia<\/strong>, who passed away on Wednesday morning (June 24) at the age of <strong>54<\/strong>, following <strong>a serious health issue<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Takis Gkonia\u2019s career on the field<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Takis Gkonia<\/strong> began his soccer career with <strong>Levadiakos<\/strong>, where he played for five years before transferring to <strong>Olympiacos<\/strong>, with whom he had two stints (1993\u20131997 and 2003\u20132004). During his career, he also played for <strong>Iraklis<\/strong> during two separate stints (1997\u20131998 and 2002\u20132003), and also played for <strong>Sporting Gij\u00f3n<\/strong>, <strong>Paniliakos<\/strong>, <strong>Panionios<\/strong>, <strong>Messina<\/strong>, and <strong>Crotone<\/strong>, where he ended his soccer career.<\/p>\n<h2>From the Bench to His Legacy<\/h2>\n<p>After retiring from active play, he turned to <strong>coaching<\/strong>, taking the helm at <strong>Glyfada<\/strong>, <strong>Episkopi<\/strong>, <strong>Athens Kallithea<\/strong>, <strong>Ergotelis<\/strong>, <strong>Wadi Degla<\/strong>, and <strong>Pyramids<\/strong>. He actually worked with the Egyptian team during two separate stints, from June to September 2021 and from April 2022 to January 2023, which marked the final stop in his coaching career.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Levadiakos FC<\/strong> expressed its deep sorrow over his loss, bidding farewell to the veteran soccer player with an official announcement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Levadiakos\u2019s statement<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Levadiakos FC expresses its deepest sorrow over the loss of Takis Gkounias.<\/p>\n<p>Takis Gkounias served Greek sports with integrity, character, and passion for soccer, leaving his own unique mark through his remarkable career on Greek and European fields.<\/p>\n<p>The sorrow is even greater for the Levadiakos family, as he took his first steps in soccer with our team, proudly wearing the club\u2019s jersey for five years.<\/p>\n<p>His memory will live on through his career and his contributions to the sport, but above all through his loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>The Levadiakos family extends its sincere condolences to his loved ones and wishes them strength and courage during these difficult times.<\/p>\n<p>Farewell, Takis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Takis Gkoni\u00e1s, a former soccer player and coach, passed away at the age of 54 following a serious health issue.<br \/>\nDeep mourning has spread throughout &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greece"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}