Samaras :: Georgios Samaras

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Georgios Samaras (Greek: Γεώργιος Σαμαράς, pronounced ; born 21 February 1985) is a Greek former professional footballer who played as a striker. Samaras started his career at OFI, before moving on to Eredivisie side Heerenveen in 2001. He made his first team debut two years later and after a further three seasons with the club he moved to Premier League club Manchester City for a fee of £6 million in 2006. After Sven-Göran Eriksson took over as manager Samaras fell out of favour with the first team. In January 2008 he was loaned out to Scottish Premier League team Celtic, moving on a permanent basis in the summer. Samaras helped Celtic win Scottish league championships in 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2014, totalling 74 goals in 249 competitive games. He left the club at the end of his contract in 2014 and returned to the Premier League with West Bromwich Albion, where he featured rarely and had an unsuccessful loan to Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia. In March 2016, he joined North American Soccer League expansion team Rayo OKC, and when they shut down after one season he signed for Real Zaragoza. He then played for Turkish team Samsunspor before retiring in 2018. Although eligible to play for Australia, because his father Ioannis Samaras was born in Melbourne, Samaras chose to represent his country of birth, Greece. Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License - Full article