Georgios Samaras

Aye. Still wid

 

My favourite moment with Sammy is actually a game we lost. When Neymar got Broony sent off and from that moment Sammy was unbelievable. I'm sure I remember him making a slide tackle Marcio Santos would have been proud of in the LB position at one point. It really was all about the emotion with him: he could be awful at times; but get him emotional and he was unplayable, even for a lot of European teams.

 

One of my fav players.

On his day was unstoppable, it was just trying to get him on his day, lol.

 

Big Sammy hiding from criticism behind a pillar is the most on brand Sammy thing ever

 

Former Celtic hero Georgios Samaras admitted Parkhead became like a home from home when he joined from Manchester City – but admitted he had no idea what boss Gordon Strachan was saying at first!

The Greek played a huge part in Hoops success during six years in the east end of Glasgow, lifting eight major honours. And Samaras said it is where he felt most settled during his career. But the 39-year-old took time to get to grips with the Scottish accent and had to ask team-mate Gary Caldwell what Strachan was telling him to do in the early days of his Celtic career

Samaras, now 39, shared the hilarious tale, in an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes Fanzone, as he said: “Understanding the accent was the biggest challenge at Celtic... I had no idea what Gordon Strachan was saying to me! I never felt like it was difficult for me to settle into life in Scotland, to be honest, because like usual, I just tried to keep myself to myself. My focus was always on developing as a player and enjoying the peace when I wasn't playing. The hardest thing for me, at first, was just understanding the accent

To be honest, in my first two weeks, I couldn't understand a lot at all! The gaffer was Gordon Strachan, so it doesn't get much more difficult than that in terms of the accent! I remember in the first couple of days, he kept giving me this instruction, which just sounded like 'Sammy, bull-oot, bull-oot!'. I had no idea what this 'bull-oot' meant so I just couldn't understand what he was trying to say to me. Anyway, in my second or third game, we get into the dressing room and, again, he said to me, 'Sammy, take the ball, hold the ball, bull-oot, let's start from there'.


So once the meeting had finished, I went to Gary Caldwell and just said ‘Gaz, err... what the f***! What's bull-oot?!’ Gaz just started laughing and explained to me that the gaffer was saying 'ball out', which made a lot more sense to me!

“I definitely needed some time to adapt and understand the accent, but I ended up sitting next to Scott Brown in the dressing room, so we started talking a lot. He was a great teammate, by the way, a great player




Every day we would talk and talk and that helped me slowly pick up more and more words and understand the accent, and in the end I started to use them myself. So I'm a bit Scottish now!”


But explaining his move to Celtic, he said: “A couple of days before the end of the January transfer window in 2008, Alistair Mackintosh came to me and told me about what he thought was a really great move for me, away from Man City. He said he'd found the right club for me, and Alistair was always one of the guys I could trust because I knew he always had my best interests at the front of his mind

I had a phone conversation with Peter Lawwell and Gordon Stachan. I liked what I heard from them, but I told them I needed to come to the club and just speak to them face-to-face. I drove from Manchester to Glasgow but because we were so late in the transfer window, we were conscious of the media surrounding the stadium, so I had to enter the building through a back door



Once I stepped out onto the pitch and saw the stadium, even though it was empty, I just said ‘oh, wow!’ You could just feel something there. Again, I had another talk with the club and that was it, I signed for them, initially on loan. There are some huge personalities within that club, and you need that trait to cope with the amount of pressure that is put on you, from the fans and the media. Your motivation is there every day, to go and win trophies and play on those European nights. I knew I would develop every single day at that club and I'm so glad with how things went because I knew the move was right for me

 

One day he was Zlatan Ibrahimović the next 5 he'd be Akinbiyi.

* love him

 

Anybody know if he’s in Glasgow just now? Positive I seen him at the Baby grand/7th heaven strippers bit when I was merging onto the Kingston bridge on the way home yesterday

 

He'd be getting my 20s straight in his thong

 

i loved big Sammy

 

Same here

 

Absolutely loved him man , gutted when he left

 

What's the big man doing these days anyway?

Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk

 

So many familiar faces yesterday.

 

Brilliant pictures, bless the 2 of them.

 

He's running a business of some sort I'm sure someone said a while back.