Georgios Tzavellas

Georgios Tzavellas (Γεώργιος Τζαβέλλας; born 26 November 1987) is a Greek professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Super League club Atromitos.

Tzavellas began his professional career with Kerkyra in a home match against Larissa (0–0).In Kerkyra played in 23 games (two goals) before signed for Panionios in January 2008.

After signing for Panionios, Tzavellas was given the number 31.

He made his debut on 13 September 2008 in the 0–1 away win versus Panserraikos.

He scored his first goal on 7 December 2008 in the 45th minute in the 1–1 draw with Larissa.

In his first full season, Tzavellas went on to make 17 appearances, scoring two goals.

The 2009–10 season began brightly for Tzavellas as he cemented his place in the squad.

In his second season with Panionios, he made a total of 24 appearances, starting all 24, but not scoring.

On 3 June 2010, the left back signed a three-year contract with Eintracht Frankfurt, which spent €1.2 million to sign him.

He soon became a member of Eintracht's starting eleven.

He missed the remainder of the 2010–11 season.

Eintracht were relegated to 2. Bundesliga at the end of the season.

An injury to his left knee towards the end of the 2010–11 season, put the knockout and the relegation of the team, substantially accelerated its consignment of borrowing to Monaco at the end of next season.

On 12 March 2011, Tzavellas scored his first Bundesliga goal during an away match against Schalke.

He managed to beat German international goalkeeper Manuel Neuer with an effort from 73 meters, setting a new record for the longest distance a Bundesliga goal was ever scored from.

During the Bundesliga match against Werder Bremen on 8 April 2011, Tzavellas suffered a partial rupture of the cruciate ligament in his left knee.

During summer 2011, Bundesliga new-boys Augsburg were reported to want the Greece defender, who was under contract until 2013, to strengthen their squad ahead of what promised to be a difficult season.

At the same time, Tzavellas was rumoured to want to leave Eintracht Frankfurt following their relegation from the top flight.

However, his agent, Paul Koutsoliakos, stated: "There is simply no truth in this." Eintracht Frankfurt general manager Bruno Hübner added: "We would refuse to accept any loan arrangements in this respect as something like this would just postpone a permanent transfer for the player. We would be in the same situation in 12 months."

On 31 January 2012, it was announced that Tzavellas would leave Eintracht Frankfurt and join Ligue 2 outfit Monaco with immediate effect.

Under the guidance of Claudio Ranieri, the Greek international left-back, helped the Monegasque escalate in Ligue 1, scoring twice in 24 appearances during their promotion season, but French Football News understands that Monaco's left back Giorgos Tzavellas is in advanced negotiations with PAOK Salonika after being considered as 'dead wood' by Monaco manager.

It is also the towering hurdle set by the Russian team owner, Dmitry Rybolovlev and very expensive signings made, essentially paved the way for the repatriation and the agreement with PAOK.

The left back who has spent two seasons with the club is understood to have agreed to move to the club but Monaco and PAOK are currently in negotiations regarding the fee.

On 2 September 2013, he signed a four years' contract with PAOK and made his club debut on 14 September 2013 against Veria.He scored his first goal with the club in a 1–1 away draw against Atromitos.

On 19 September 2013, he made his first ever appearance in UEFA competitions in a 2–1 home victory against FC Shakhter Karagandy.

After six months in PAOK and his commitment by scoring the winning goal to the victory against the Greek giant Olympiakos, he believes that "this time, there has nothing to envy from Monaco and it made me very positive impression! We have an excellent administrative and organization of football, the club operates on a purely European standards and the most important is that the administrative leader has the vision to reach the high score! As a player I can say that I do not miss anything of what I had in Montecarlo! I believe in the team all the conditions required to look up ..."

He scored twice in his first season with the club, but undoubtedly the most important was the winning goal, on 9 March 2014, against the champions Olympiacos In January 2015, Deportivo La Coruna were in advanced talks to sign Tzavellas from PAOK but the deal will not go through.

The negotiations did not pay off for the loan of the Greek left back to Deportivo and as long as the deal could not be reached consequently the transfer falls through.

At the moment Tzavellas remains a PAOK player but his situation is still wide open as the transfer window has not closed yet.

On mid-March 2015, official PAOK informed Tzavellas that he can now return to training with the first team, since for over a month the 27-year-old defender was talking part in the practices of the U20 squad of the team, due to a quarrel with Aggelos Anastasiadis the ex-coach of PAOK.

He started the 2015–16 season as a main left-back and in contrary to last year's season considers that the treatment from Igor Tudor is different, something that was confirmed in his quarrel with his old teammate Facundo Pereyra in preparation.

Incidentally, Tzavellas is among the best players of PAOK until now, refuting those who said that he could not be a member of the club.

On 18 October 2015, Tzavellas scored his first Superleague goal with PAOK for the 2015–16 season against Iraklis in a 3–3 away draw.

On 7 February 2016, in an episodic derby Super League away match against rivals Olympiakos, Tzavellas and Luka Milivojević were involved in an incident, which was ended with an unsportsmanlike conduct by Olympiakos' Serbian midfielder, resulting to leave the field for some time because he was bleeding.

Eventually he was expelled at the second half due to a second yellow card, leaving his club with 10 players.

It was his 7th red card in his career, but the 1st that his club did not win despite his absence.

On 17 April 2016, in the last matchday of the 2015–16 season in an away game against Platanias, Tzavellas reached 100 appearances with the club in all competitions.

On 25 August 2016, in the play off's second leg of UEFA Europa League against Dinamo Tsibili he scored his first international goal after Facundo Pereyra's corner with the head, sealing a 2–0 home win.

On 13 September 2016, Tzavellas extended his contract with PAOK until summer of 2020 with better financial terms.

He started the 2016–17 season as an indisputable key player of club's defence.