History
The club was founded on 4 October 1930, with Stavros Pittas voted in as the club's first president, and has since grown into the largest sports club in the entire country. The football section of the club competed in its first game on 6 January 1931 against PSC, winning 6-1 in Limassol. The club won its national championship in 1934 though this is not credited as it is an unofficial title. Later that year, AEL became one of the eight founding members of the Cypriot First Division for the 1934-35 season, the first official league of the country.
AEL Limassol celebrated its first official title success in 1941, beating out APOEL 4-3 in a two-legged championship play-off. AEL fans had to wait 12 years until tasting title success again, as the club finally became champions of Cyprus again in 1953. The club won its last major trophy in 1989, before the title success of 2012, when it defeated city rivals Aris Limassol 3-2 after extra time in the Cypriot Cup final.
In 2011 after disappointingly finishing 7th in the previous campaign, AEL hired Pambos Christodoulou, who had a reputation of steering "modest sides away from relegation," to start the rebuilding process. AEL Limassol secured the Cypriot league title for the first time since 1968 on Saturday 5 May 2012, ending 44 years without a Cypriot first division title.
Christodoulou had a dream-like first season at the helm AEL, as his side was unbeaten and had not conceded any goals through the first five games. At the end of the second round AEL finished top of the of the table, three points clear of the second placed team and had only conceded seven goals, the best defensive record of all the league teams. In the play-off round AEL battled with the top 4 teams for the championship winning it with one game to go conceding only nine goals. As Christodoulou has managed to bring AEL the championship crown, which the team last won in 1968, he was nicknamed by fans "Pambourinho", a combination of his name and of Jose Mourinho.
AEL received the championship trophy during a spectacular “fiesta” evening at the Tsirion Stadium on the evening of Saturday 12 May 2012. They followed this with an open-top bus parade through Limassol. Up to 15,000 AEL fans packed the stadium to watch the fiesta and trophy presentation. The club then turned their attention to the Cup Final of 16 May against Omonia Nicosia; and the chance to be crowned double winners for the first time in their history. However the club lost in the final 1-0 to a goal by Brazilian striker Andre Alves.
Read more about this topic: AEL Limassol
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