The 1996–97 Greek Football Cup was the 55th edition of the

Greek Football Cup The Greek Football Cup (), commonly known as the Greek Cup or Betsson Greek Cup for sponsorship reasons is a Greek football competition, run by the Hellenic Football Federation. The Greek Cup is the second-most important domestic men's footba ...

Tournament details

Totally 72 teams participated, 18 from Alpha Ethniki, 18 from

Beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

, and 36 from

Gamma Gamma (; uppercase , lowercase ; ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter normally repr ...

. It was held in 7 rounds, included final. After 8 years the group stage was suppressed, while the teams of Alpha Ethniki would enter in the competition at the round of 32. The round of 16 was very interesting, as Olympiacos eliminated

PAOK PAOK (, Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινοπολιτών, ''Panthessalonikeios Athlitikós Ómilos Constantinopoliton'', ''Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans''), commonly ...

and Panathinaikos eliminated Iraklis. Also, Ionikos tipped OFI with 7 goals. For third time in the 4 last years AEK Athens and Panathinaikos were pondered over in the final, held in Karaiskakis Stadium. AEK Athens won on the

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

. The loss of Cup for Panathinaikos, in combination with their mediocre course in the

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

, meant the unique time at the last 25 years that the club did not participate in any European competition.

Calendar

Knockout phase

Each tie in the knockout phase, apart from the final, was played over two legs, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs advanced to the next round. If the aggregate score was level, the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

was applied, i.e. the team that scored more goals away from home over the two legs advanced. If away goals were also equal, then

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

was played. The away goals rule was again applied after extra time, i.e. if there were goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score was still level, the visiting team advanced by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals were scored during extra time, the winners were decided by a

. In the final, which were played as a single match, if the score was level at the end of normal time, extra time was played, followed by a penalty shoot-out if the score was still level.
The mechanism of the draws for each round is as follows: *There are no seedings, and teams from the same group can be drawn against each other.

First round

Second round

Bracket

Round of 32

Round of 16

Summary

Matches

''Ionikos won 7–4 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Panachaiki won 4–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Apollon Athens won 2–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Panathinaikos won 4–0 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Ialysos won 6–3 on aggregate.'' ---- ''AEK Athens won 6–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Olympiacos won 4–2 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Paniliakos won 8–2 on aggregate.''

Quarter-finals

Summary

Matches

''Panachaiki won away goals.'' ---- ''Olympiacos won 2–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Panathinaikos won 3–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ''AEK Athens won 5–1 on aggregate.''

Semi-finals

Summary

Matches

''AEK Athens won 3–1 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Panathinaikos won 7–0 on aggregate.''

Final

References

External links

Greek Cup 1996-97
at RSSSF {{DEFAULTSORT:1996-97 Greek Cup Greek Football Cup seasons

Greek Cup The Greek Football Cup (), commonly known as the Greek Cup or Betsson Greek Cup for sponsorship reasons is a Greek football competition, run by the Hellenic Football Federation. The Greek Cup is the second-most important domestic men's footba ...

Cup