Michael Dawson: "It will be rocking in Greece!"

Spurs through and through, Michael Dawson warmed our hearts with his live reporting on last season’s Champions League run for Sky Sports. “The dream is still alive!” he declared as Harry Kane nodded home the winner against PSV in the group stage. That dream took us all the way to the final, and ‘Daws’ relished every moment from afar.

Now our popular former captain - 324 appearances for us between 2005-2014 - is in a position to give us an insight into our first Champions League opponents this season, Olympiacos.

We take on the Greek side on Matchday One of Group B in Athens on Wednesday (5.55pm UK). You have to go back 47 years to 1972 for the last time we faced Olympiacos in European competition. That was over two legs in the UEFA Cup. Michael stepped out at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium just 63 days ago.

Skipper back at his first club Nottingham Forest, Daws led his team out for a pre-season friendly against Olympiacos on 16 July. Part of a two-match whistle stop summer tour of Greece, Forest beat Atromitos 3-0 but were then blown away in the first half by Olympiacos, who were 2-0 up in 10 minutes and 3-0 up by the break. That’s how it stayed.

Back playing regularly after being laid low by injury last season, that friendly certainly left an impression on the 35-year-old.

“The Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, also owns Olympiacos, that’s the connection and how we ended up playing them in pre-season,” explained Michael, who played 40 times for us in Europe, including scoring in a 1-1 draw in Greece at Panathinaikos in the Europa League in 2012.

“It was incredible. We were over there for five days in July. We played two games, Atromitos, who we beat 3-0 – I managed to get on the scoresheet again in Greece - and Olympiacos, who beat us 3-0.

“I’ve got to say the atmosphere, even for a pre-season friendly, was amazing. The start of the game was delayed for five minutes because there were flares going off everywhere!

“Olympiacos were gearing up for the Champions League qualifiers. They had to play six games before they reached the group stage. They were playing in the second qualifying round (against Viktoria Plzen) the week after they played us, they were a week ahead of us in terms of preparations and better than us on the night.

“Olympiacos were decent, passing the ball well and looking to play from the back, but they scored from two set-pieces against us. They mark zonally, same as us, and in fact we could have scored a couple ourselves before they went 1-0 up. We actually started well!

“The place will be rocking on Wednesday night. It’s a great place to play football. I really enjoyed it apart from the fact that we gave away poor goals. It was a great workout for us but for Spurs, it’s going to be a big game, you’ll be looking to get off to a good start and the atmosphere out there will be electric.

“It’s a tough place to go and the lads will have to be right at it. You’ll need to handle the atmosphere, but European games are like that, the players know that and they’ve seen it all before, reached the final last season and what better preparation than that 4-0 win against Palace? That was a great performance.”

Spurs fans will be pleased to hear that Michael has overcome recent injury problems to lead Forest again this season. He’s where he wants to be – on the pitch.

“I’ve always said that I love playing football,” he added. “There is no better feeling. Last season was frustrating, I had the injury (hamstring), but this season has started well, I’ve played all seven games and we’ve had a good start.

“We’ve a new manager in charge, Sabri Lamouchi, and he’s been great, a great man-manager. We had a fantastic win at the weekend (1-0 at Swansea) and long may it continue. As long as I keep playing and keep playing well, hopefully these legs will keep me going for a few years yet!”