Soulis Markopoulos / COACH (2014-15)
Soulis Markopoulos was born in Thessaloniki on March 1, 1949 and played for Olympos of 40 Churches and Dimokritos, with whom he participated the A’ division League. Right after finishing his career as an athlete, he began his coaching one from Dimokritos, while he has also coached Iraklis, Makedonikos, Aris, AEK, Maroussi and PAOK (three times).
He first worked with PAOK during the 1993-94 season. Originally as an assistant coach and after Dusan Ivkovic stepped down, he took over as PAOK’s head coach leading the team to winning the Korac Cup in April 1994 and to the play-offs final of the same season. During his first term with PAOK, Soulis Markopoulos coached PAOK in 34 games, scoring a 26-8 winning record (17-7 in the Greek League and 9-1 for the Korac Cup).
In December 21, 2005, Soulis Markopoulos returned to the technical leadership of PAOK (replacing Bane Prelevic) and took over the team during an extremely difficult period competition wise. By the end of the 2005-06 season and during 20 regular season and play-offs games, he had a record of 11 victories and 9 defeats, while PAOK was eliminated from the League’s Final Four in details.
In 2008 he was named the top Greek coach, while during the 2008-09 season he led Maroussi to the 3rd place of the League thus winning its participation in the Euroleague qualifying rounds.
He came back to PAOK in the 2009-10 season and during his second year with the team (2010-11) he once again led PAOK to win the 3rd place (in both the regular season and the play-offs) and a spot in the Euroleague qualification round after 11 years!
In February 19, 2011, Soulis Markopoulos became the first coach in the history of Greek basketball to reach 500 games in the A’ division. In May 8, 2014 and in the play-offs game vs Kifisia, he reached 600 games in the A' division and goes on... After completing the 2013-14 season, he reached 607 games (285 victories and 322 defeats record).
