Kostas Choumis


Kostas Choumis was a Greek-Romanian football player who played as a striker. He is often regarded in Greece and Romania as one of the greatest strikers from the 1930s.

Club career

Choumis was born on 20 November 1913 in Piraeus, Greece and began playing junior-level football in 1929 at local club Ethnikos [Piraeus F.C.|Ethnikos]. In 1933 he made his senior debut for The Blue-Whites. He won the South Division championship with Ethnikos in the 1934–1935 season, scoring 15 goals in 10 matches. The National Championship was not held in the 1934–35 season, but in the next year it was played, and Choumis, became a top scorer alongside three other players, with 12 goals netted in 14 matches.
In 1936, Choumis joined Romanian club Venus București, after scoring two goals against Romania a year earlier. He played his first Divizia A match on 13 September 1946 under coach Ferenc Plattkó in a 1–1 draw against AMEF Arad. At the end of his first season, the team won the title with him contributing with 18 goals netted in the 20 games Plattkó used him. He won two more championships in the 1938–39 and 1939–40 seasons, being used by coach Béla Jánosy in 14 matches in which he scored nine goals in the first one and in eight games with five goals netted in the second. He played in the last three matches of the 1940 [Cupa României final], when, after two draws in two replays of the final Rapid București won the third replay and the trophy. He remains in history as the first scorer for a Romanian team in the European competitions, netting the first goal for Venus București in the first round of the 1937 Mitropa Cup against Ujpest from Hungary. The match was lost by Venus, 4–6, with Choumis also scoring the last goal of the Romanian team.
He stayed with Venus during World War II but left in 1946 to play for Rapid București. Choumis played at Rapid only half a season, afterwards moving to IT Arad, where he played just one game but won the championship. In 1947 he joined Karres Mediaș, where he played a season alongside Ștefan Dobay. He made a total of 102 appearances with 80 goals scored in the Romanian top-league, Divizia A.

International career

Choumis played nine games and scored eight goals for Greece, making his debut on 23 December 1934 under coach Apostolos Nikolaidis in a 2–1 home win against Yugoslavia in the 1934–35 Balkan Cup. A few days later, in the same competition, he scored his first goal in a 2–2 draw against Romania.
In the 1935 Balkan Cup, he scored two doubles, the first in a loss to Bulgaria and the second in a draw against Romania. In the following edition of the Balkan Cup, he again scored a brace in a loss to Bulgaria, bringing his total tally in the Balkan Cup up to seven goals, which means he is among the all-time top scorers in the competition's history.
In his last match for Greece, he scored the team's only goal in Cairo, but the Greek squad lost to Egypt.
In 1941, after five years of living in Romania, Choumis made his debut for Romania's national team under coach Virgil Economu in a 3–2 friendly victory against Slovakia where he scored once. His second and last international match for The Tricolours came in June 1943, playing another friendly against Slovakia which ended with a 2–2 draw.

International Goals

No.DateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition
127 December 1934Leoforos Alexandras Stadium, Athens, Greece2–22–21934–35 Balkan Cup
216 June 1935Yunak Stadium, Sofia, Bulgaria1–02–51935 Balkan Cup
316 June 1935Yunak Stadium, Sofia, Bulgaria2–52–51935 Balkan Cup
424 June 1935Levski Stadium, Sofia, Bulgaria1–02–21935 Balkan Cup
524 June 1935Levski Stadium, Sofia, Bulgaria2–02–21935 Balkan Cup
621 May 1936ONEF Stadium, Bucharest, Romania2–34–51936 Balkan Cup
721 May 1936ONEF Stadium, Bucharest, Romania2–34–51936 Balkan Cup
819 June 1936Prince Farouk Stadium, Cairo, Egypt1–11–3Friendly

No.DateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition
112 October 1941ANEF Stadium, Bucharest, Romania1–13–2Friendly

Managerial career

In the middle of the 1950s, Choumis returned to Greece where he coached teams such as Egaleo, Ethnikos and PAS Giannina. In 1969 he coached for one month the national amateur team of Greece.

Death

Choumis died on 20 July 1981 in Athens, Greece at age 67.

Honours

Club

Ethnikos Piraeus
  • Greek South Division Championship: 1934–35
Venus București
UTA Arad

International

Greece

Individual