Lazaros Christodoulopoulos

Club

Aris

Position

Midfielder

Nationality

Greece

Date of birth

1986-12-19

Birthplace

Thessaloniki, Greece

Height

1.84 m (6 ft 0 in)

Weight

76.64

Shirt number

7

Signing / transfer fee

Signed

Lazaros Christodoulopoulos (born 19 December 1986), known mononymously as Lazaros due to his long surname, is a Greek professional footballer who plays for Super League club Aris. He plays as a winger, a second striker or an attacking midfielder.
His main strengths are his technique, pace and acceleration with the ball. Like his Greek teammate Sokratis Papastathopoulos, his surname is too long to fit on his shirt, so his shirt reads Lazaros instead.

Club career
PAOK
Christodoulopoulos started his career when he was picked up by Omonoia Sindos (in Thessaloniki) at a young age, and then Neapoli. His impressive performances caught the eye of a PAOK scout, and joined PAOK in the summer of 2004. He has been a mainstay in the PAOK first team proving to be a vital team player.

As of 2008 many European clubs were interested in signing him. He was contracted to P.A.O.K. until 2008 with minimum fee release clause of €6 million.

In the summer of 2006 he was given a trial by English giants Liverpool but PAOK was reluctant to sell him at the time. This started a dispute that prevented him from playing for more than half of the 2006–07 season. He was nicknamed "The Builder" by the local media, because during his fall-out in relations with PAOK, he stated that he would be better off being a construction worker than playing for PAOK again.

Panathinaikos
On 20 June 2008, Christodoulopoulos agreed a deal in principle to join Panathinaikos FC for €3.8 million. Christodoulopoulos signed a four-year contract with the club. On 18 February 2010, Christodoulopoulos scored against Roma after coming on in the UEFA Europa League round of 32.

The 2011–12 season didn't start well for him, as he faced a serious knee injury during pre-season which led him to surgery. The club doctors said that he would be expected to return after five months. After months of therapy and special treatment, he joined the rest of the team at training in December. On 29 December 2011, the club president announced that Christodoulopoulos had agreed to sign a new three-year contract until 2015 since his contract was going to expire during the end of the 2011–12 season. In January 2012, it was reported that Liverpool were interested in signing Christodoulopoulos, the former trialist at the club, for £2,000,000 (€4,500,000).

Christodoulopoulos began 2012–13 by scoring in European and championship matches. He was given the number "10". He and Ibrahim Sissoko were the most important players