Maria Lazarou

Maria Lazarou
Personnel
birthday	September 30, 1972
place of birth	Serres ,  Greece
size	170 cm
position	Midfielder
Women
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
	Diana drama
	AO Kavala 86
~ 1995 ~	FC Rumeln-Kaldenhausen
	GS Ilioupolis
~ 2004 ~	PAOK Thessaloniki
	GS Ilioupolis
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1991-2004	Greece	111 (26)
1 Only league games are given.

Maria Lazarou ( Greek Μαρία Λαζάρου ; born September 30, 1972 in Serres ) is a former Greek soccer player who was mainly used in attacking midfield .

From 1991 to 2004 she completed 111 official internationals for the Greek national soccer team of women , in which she scored 26 goals, and was therefore for years the record national player in her home country before she was surpassed by Natalia Chatzigiannidou in the summer of 2012 .

Career

Maria Lazarou was born on September 30, 1972 in the central Greek city of Serres and has played for various teams with games in the Greek first class during her career . Since her hometown club Panserraikos did not have a women's team, she played in her early days for the clubs Diana Drama or AO Kavala 86 , an independent women's football team alongside the sports club AO Kavala, which has existed since 1965 . With the team she was Greek champion in 1993. Around 1995, Lazarou, who appeared for the senior national team in her home country for the first time in 1991 , also competed for the German first division club FC Rumeln-Kaldenhausen , the predecessor of the later FCR 2001 Duisburg. With the team, she finished the 1994/95 season on the second place in the table in the northern group and thus made it into the semi-finals of the final round of the German championship.

After she lost there with the women of Rumeln-Kaldenhausen with a total score of 3: 7 to the eventual champions FSV Frankfurt , she returned to her home country and played there for GS Ilioupolis . With the team, she won the Greek women's football championship again in 1997, before joining the major club PAOK Thessaloniki , whose women's team should mutate into record winners, especially from 2006 onwards. As a member of the PAOK club, she took part with the Greek women in the women's soccer tournament at the 2004 Olympic Games in their own country, which was the first time the Greek women took part in a major tournament in the 1991 final. Lazarou, who was also used in the very first game in the history of the Greek women's national football team, still failed in the course of her career with the team in qualifying for four different world championships and was also defeated in the two Olympic qualifications for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney . At the Olympic Games at home, after three completed games, all of which were defeats, and a goal difference of 0:11 goals, the game ended early in the preliminary round.

Thereupon Maria Lazarou let her active career come to an end with her ex-club GS Ilioupolis, before she completely retired from professional sport in 2006, ended her career and is now employed in a Greek company. After that, she was the record national player in her home country for years and was only surpassed in the summer of 2012 by Natalia Chatzigiannidou , who was born in 1979 and is still active today (February 2016) . The defender has so far (as of February 2016) already played in 126 international matches for the Greek women; most recently on January 26, 2016 against Albania in qualifying for EM 2017 . In the course of her active football career, she was four times champion with four different teams; their playing style is described as average, but with a very good sense of space and excellent technical training. With her stronger left foot, she was best known for her passing strength and her placed shots.

Web links

• Maria Lazarou on womensoccer.gr (Greek)
• Maria Lazarou in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Maria Lazarou in the database of FIFA (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FIFA Women's Hundreds Club (pdf), accessed February 29, 2016
2. ↑ FOOTBALL NOTES  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 29, 2016