my liverpool fc

Kyros Vassaras of Thessaloniki in Greece will referee our Champions League 3rd round qualifying 1st leg tie against Toulouse. This will be his fifth time in charge of a Liverpool European tie, and on two of those previous occasions we ended up winning the games. 3-1 against Bayer Leverkusen in February 2005, and then earlier this year he was at Barcelona for our tremendous 2-1 victory on our way to Athens. The other matches ended as draws, 1-1 against Boavista in our first Champions League game proper, and 0-0 against Barcelona later that season. He is a travel agent by day, and his hobbies include water sports and travelling. A highly respected referee within footballing circles, this is his 8th season in the Champions League and has refereed over 30 games. The 41-year old has been on the FIFA list of international referees since January 1998 and is the ideal choice for the game as he can speak both English and French. He was the first Greek official to referee in a World Cup tournament when he was chosen as his countries representative for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea. He only refereed one game in the tournament as Costa Rica beat China 2-0 in a group match. Before that tournament he was the referee for the FIFA U-17 final between Jamaica and Burkina Faso held in New Zealand back in 1999. He was also chosen for the European Championship in Portugal, but he was only used as a fourth official. A roll he also took up four years earlier in Belgium and Holland. He was given the honour of refereeing the Olympic Football Final last summer as Argentina beat Paraguay 1-0. Kyros refereed his first international in 1999 as Austria thrashed San Marino 7-0 in a European Championship group qualifier. You could say that Kyros was born to be a referee as his father Antonis was a highly respected referee during the 70's and 80's and refereed on the international stage for over a decade. He took up the whistle when he was 18 in 1984. As usual all officials are from the same country, Dimitrios Saraidaris and Cristos Gennaios are his assistants and Michail Koukoulakis is the fourth official. Matches involving Liverpool and Kyros Vassaras. 11th September 2001 - Liverpool play their first Champions League match proper as a Michael Owen goal cancels out an early Boavista strike. 13th March 2002 - Liverpool get another goalless draw in Barcelona for the second season in succession as we head to the quarter-final stage for the first time in the Champions League. 22nd February 2005 - Liverpool defeat Bayer 04 Leverkusen 3-1 in the 1st round 1st leg at Anfield with goals from Garcia, Riise and Hamann. 21st February 2007 - Goals from Bellamy and Riise give us a tremendous win against Barcelona at the Nou Camp.

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