Savva Georgiou

Who was Savva Georgiou?

Georgios Savva was a Cypriot football striker and was the first foreign footballer ever to play professionally in Israel. He was also the first ever Greek Cypriot that played in a football championship outside Cyprus. Georgios comes from a working class Greek background mixed with Jewish heritage from one of his grandfathers.

He played football during the 1950s and he was one of the best ever Cypriot footballers. Sometimes he could play even as a defender. He began playing football for APOEL youth team in 1949 and one year later he became a member of the senior squad. Scoring two goals for his team in the Cypriot Cup final in 1951 against EPA Larnaca, APOEL won the final 7-0 and he won the first trophy in his career. In 1952, he helped his team to win the Cypriot Championship and then, as the first professional Cypriot player he played football in England with Bristol City for one year and he also played for the representative team of London.