The story of the 17-year-old Greek defender who made his debut for Jose Mourinho’s Roma and the explanation given by his father for the youngster’s passing from PAOK.
Dimitris Keramitsis is living his dream! At 17.5 years old, he has made his Serie A debut for Roma, while he trains daily under the guidance of Jose Mourinho!
The Greek central defender of Roma, who reminds Italians of Kostas Manolas, was born and raised in Thessaloniki, but he comes from Evros.
It was his father, Nikos, who pushed him to take up football. A graduate of the famous coaching school in Cologne, Nikos Keramitsis never pursued the profession of a coach, but his family relationship with the well-known coach Yannis Ispyrlidis, with several stints in Superleague teams, mainly in Xanthi, proved to be the right path for the boy’s future.
The father of Dimitris Keramitsis returned to Thessaloniki today from Rome, where he was present at his son’s debut for Roma against Cagliari for the 22nd round of Serie A.
The explanation about PAOK
The 17-year-old defender was gaining football experience in the summer of 2020 when he decided to leave for Italy and Empoli. He tried his luck in several academies of Thessaloniki teams and had twice passed through PAOK.
His debut for Roma’s first team opened up a big conversation regarding the youngster’s cut from the ‘black and white’ academy, with his father setting the record straight by saying:
“We decided to leave Greece and the decisive point was the period when Dimitris was in PAOK’s academy. There was a lot of talk about how and why he left PAOK. For my part, I want to make it clear that the only person who is not to blame for anything and for Dimitris leaving PAOK is Vangelis Pourliotopoulos, whom I don’t know personally, but I want to be fair and not to lead everyone to wrong assessments and conclusions. His subordinates were the ones who were responsible in the decision taken at the time, but it is something the club needs to deal with internally. When the boy was 12 and a half years old when he was stopped by PAOK, we were in a dilemma, either to go to Olympiacos, who along with PAOK have the best academies in Greece, or to go abroad. We decided that our way is abroad and so we built the whole process in collaboration with, again, Yannis Ispirlidis. Without his help, Dimitris would never have played in Serie A. When he joined Empoli a year and a half ago he was ready to play. The only thing he lacked was individual and team tactics. That’s where he built his name and last season every team he played against, whether it was Milan, Lazio, Roma, Fiorentina, at small team level, wanted to sign him. Half of the Campionato wanted to get him and we finally chose Roma in the summer.”
21/01/22
Source: Gazzetta