Stelios Giannakopoulos played for Bolton Wanderers from 2003 to the 2007-08 season.

Stelios spent the majority of his playing career in his homeland of Greece. He played in the youth academies of both Fostiras Kesarianis and Ethnikos Asteras before graduating to Asteras' first team in 1993.

The Athens native then earned a switch to Paniliakos, where he started to gain the attention of several teams with his impressive performances, one of which was Olympiacos, for whom he eventually signed in 1996.

Stelios managed to grab Olympiacos’s first ever Champions League goal, and he would go on to become a star performer for them, nailing down a place in the Greek national team in the process as he managed to get 87 goals and 28 assists in 276 appearances across a seven-year spell with Olympiacos.

In 2003, the winger then made a move to English football, where he joined Bolton Wanderers, who were under the management of Sam Allardyce.

Giannakopoulos would maintain his impressive form while playing for the Lancashire club, and he was a fan favourite among the Bolton faithful.

Stelios had the ability to beat players with his tricks, and he also had an eye for a long-range shot, making him one of the league’s most exciting players. He would go on to play for Bolton in a five-year spell, making 177 appearances, scoring 28 goals, and providing 11 assists. He played a major role in Bolton securing consecutive top-10 finishes in the Premier League.

Stelios left Bolton after his contract expired in 2008 to join Hull City, another English club. However, his spell in Yorkshire wasn’t as successful as the one he had at Bolton; the Greek international only appeared for the Tigers on three occasions and therefore left in January 2009.

Stelios left England and returned back to his homeland of Greece, where he joined AE Larisa, which would be the Greeks' final team as he saw out his playing career and officially retired from football in January 2010.

Stelios left football to become president of the Greek PFA in May 2010, before returning to management with his former club Paniliakos in August 2012, where he was sacked a few months later. Stelios had another brief stint in management with AEKlfisia in 2016 before joining Greece as an assistant manager in 2019.

That was Stelios’ last official job, but the now 48-year-old said in the summer that he would love to win the Premier League as a coach.

That might be an unrealistic dream of Stelios’ at this current time, but one thing is for sure: the 48-year-old was a fantastic footballer to watch and probably a legend of Bolton Wanderers in their fans' eyes.