Stavros Zarokostas
Photography by Luke Stergiou.
“Growing up, my grandmother says that my first word was μπάλα (Bála), which is ball in Greek. So I clearly always had a passion for it.”
For Stavros Zarokostas, no two things are more important in his life than family and soccer. Growing up in Greece, it’s hard not to have those two things intertwined in your life. Moving back and forth from Leonidion, Greece, and Coventry, Rhode Island, Stavros always found a way to incorporate the beautiful game into his life. From his family being divided by their support of Panathinaikos and Olympiakos, to his uncle playing professionally in Greece’s second division, it comes as no surprise that the seed was planted early on.
Since those formative moments with his family back in Greece, Stavros has been on a life-long, transcontinental journey to pursue that fervent passion for the beautiful game. Starting off in Greece, going over to Rhode Island, eventually getting drafted by the New York Red Bulls in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft, then playing for Charleston Battery in the USL Championship, and most recently signing for FC Haka in Finland, it's been quite a trek for Stavros. Despite all the miles he’s logged, though, he has no trouble looking back.
“When I was young, soccer was always around. In recess, that's all we would do. We had trash cans as goals and we would play on asphalt. It's funny to look back and think about that. My front teeth are all fake because I used to fall down on the asphalt so often, but I’d always get back up and try to score a goal to get revenge. I definitely think that’s shaped a big part of my playing style. I was always the little guy with heart.”
That mentality quickly set him apart, and it was one that was passed on early by his family, who also happened to live and breathe soccer with a burning passion. With his family split between fervent Olympiacos and Panathinaikos supporters, that sense of rivalry always ran through Stavros’ veins, and he vividly remembers how those derby days as a kid would paralyze his family and his entire village of Leonidion.
“The Olympiakos-Panathinaikos rivalry was almost a family rivalry too, and actually our entire village would shut down for the day during those matches. Those were always some of the most memorable days I had as a kid in Greece.”
But besides those experiences, the guidance of his uncle and his father also played an important role in urging Stavros to seriously pursue soccer. His uncle played professionally for A.S. Leonidion in Greece’s second division.
“My uncle played pro for A.S. Leonidion in Greece’s second division, and he was on the team during their golden years, so it was unforgettable to see him play. That partly inspired me to do what I do now, but my dad also played an important role. He never really shined when it came to soccer, but he’s always been a very hard-working guy and supportive, so I credit a lot of my game to him. Both played very important roles. Sometimes you need someone else to believe in you, so you can believe in yourself.”
That belief extended throughout Stavros’ childhood, even when they moved to Coventry, Rhode Island. The transition from Greece was quite stark, but Stavros managed to make it his new home by staying consistent with his passion for soccer.
“It was a different environment. I remember at recess we played on the little dirt patch that had a basketball hoop, and all that stuff, but not really a soccer field. Still, we used to draw in the goals with our feet, so it had a similar vibe to playing on asphalt back in Greece.”
Moving to Rhode Island, Stavros’s parents weren’t too sure how soccer worked or how to sign up their son up to play with a team. Thankfully, with the help of friends in their new home, Stavros’ family was able to promptly enroll him to play for a local youth soccer team.
It would mark the official start of his competitive soccer journey. But making it out of Rhode Island and into the professional world was going to be a titanic endeavor.
By the time he reached the end of high school, the quiet lifestyle of Rhode Island had allowed Stavros to pursue a few different interests while also polishing his skills and developing as a player.
“Soccer was always my primary passion growing up, but whenever I wasn’t playing, I was making music or working at my family’s restaurant. I still have a notebook with the nursery rhymes I used to write as a kid. I always had a passion for music, and then in 6th grade, I started making beats. I downloaded Audacity and started recording. It was terrible, but I’ve gotten better over the years, and I still enjoy making songs.”
By the time the University of Rhode Island – which was only 30 minutes from Stavros’ home – selected him for a spot in their roster, Stavros had already earned a name for himself in the local soccer community.
“I had done well at the youth level, and I was fortunate to be able to play for a DI school so close to my home. I had a great first year, and I was voted Rookie of the Year. Things were going great with my studies, music, and even helping out at my family’s restaurant in our town. But getting voted Rookie of the Year showed me I could really reach the pro level, so that’s when I pretty much went all in on playing soccer.”
Stavros would go on to have a very successful college soccer career at the University of Rhode Island, going on to receive many accolades, including being selected for the United Soccer Coaches All-Southeast Region Third Team, Atlantic 10 All-Conference First Team, and even ending his college soccer career with 28 goals and 17 assists.
His impressive college career led him to the 2020 MLS SuperDraft, where he was drafted 62nd overall by the New York Red Bulls.
“It was an amazing feeling. I'll never forget it,” he says. “The day I got drafted, I was with the LA Galaxy for pre-season, and my friend was streaming the draft on his phone. I saw my name under the New York Red Bulls and I couldn’t believe it. A few years back, I had just been working at the restaurant and focusing on studies and college soccer, and then I was getting drafted.”
After talking to then New York Red Bulls Coach Chris Armas, Stavros was able to fly back to Rhode Island, pack his stuff, and then drive to New York to meet up with the team. The next day he went to Florida with the team for the start of preseason. After training with the team for two weeks, he was informed that the Red Bulls would not offer him a first-team contract.
“I was shocked,” he admits. “I thought I was doing really well. My agent talked to me, and he said unfortunately that's how the business is. He told me not to take it personally, but it was hard at the time. I thought I jumped the gun. I thought I'd made it.”
Luckily for Stavros, his agent flew him to Charleston, South Carolina the next day to meet with Charleston Battery coach Mike Anhaeuser. Anhaeuser offered Stavros a contract and so began his professional soccer career.
“I wouldn't change anything about my journey,” he says. “I think that experience taught me a lot about life. I developed as a person, as a player and I was happy to be in Charleston and start my dream.”
Stavros was excited to get a fresh start in Charleston, but there would be yet another snag in his journey. “I fell in love with the place at first,” he says, “but the COVID pandemic hit, so the transition was tough.”
After a short break, training resumed for the team. Immediately, Stavros hit the ground running.
“When training started to come back, I can tell I fit in with the team and their style really well.”
Stavros cites the mix of experience the team had, from veterans to rookies, and the team culture in general, as reasons for the boost in his confidence that helped him achieve a run of good form for the Battery.
Stavros would make his professional debut for the Charleston Battery on July 19th, 2020, coming on as a 79th-minute substitute for Nicque Daly in a 2-1 defeat against Birmingham Legion. Despite his first appearance being a defeat, Stavros looks back fondly at the 2020 season.
“My most memorable experience - it wasn’t my first professional goal – but I think it was my first professional, ‘good’ goal. It was one against Tampa Bay where they had been on an unbeaten streak, and I took two defenders on, ran by one, cut inside past the other, and I put it top corner. It was the first game that my brother had come down to watch, and he was the first family member to watch me play professionally. Having a member of my family there gave me an edge, and I scored. It was just an out-of-body experience.”
Stavros ended the 2020 USL Championship season on a high. Recording 16 appearances and 5 goals in his first season for the Battery, and qualifying for the playoffs. However, the 2021 season would prove to be a much different season for Stavros and the Battery.
It was a season of highs and lows, as then-coach Mike Anhaeuser would be replaced by American soccer legend Conor Casey after he failed to make the 2021 playoffs, with the team landing 6th place in the Eastern Conference. Stavros would end up only scoring 3 times during the 2021 season, with one of those goals coincidentally being the 10,000th goal scored in the USL Championship. When asked to look back at the 2021 season, Stavros says it's hard to pinpoint what exactly went wrong for the Battery.
“I thought we had a good team and good players. We just weren’t clicking at the end. It was the first time coach Anhaeuser didn’t make the playoffs, so it was disappointing to be a part of that for sure. Football is a cruel sport sometimes. It was not a good year for Charleston or myself.”
Still, he would soon realize an even bigger opportunity would lie ahead. This time, it would take him overseas.
On January 31st, 2022, Stavros signed a contract with FC Haka in Finland’s top flight. The boy who went back and forth from Greece to Rhode Island, New York, then South Carolina, had now landed in Valkeakoski, Finland.
The move was one that’d take Stavros to one of Finland’s most successful clubs, with 9 Finnish Championships and 12 Finnish Cup wins to its name. To anyone following Stavros’s career at that point, the transfer came as quite a shock, and even he’s still in disbelief to be playing professional soccer in Finland.
“After the 2021 season, I was talking with the Charleston Battery, I was talking with my agent, and we were just exploring options, and the chance to go to Finland came up. It was such a crazy thing to me at the time. Finland? I knew very little about Finland, other than the time when they won Eurovision while I was living in Greece,” he says with a laugh.
Stavros started looking into the club and country more and came to the realization that it’d be a huge opportunity to go play in Europe.
“I stepped back and I thought, ‘what’s my end goal?’ It’s always been to play for the Greek National team. I had other offers from Cyprus, from Greece, but FC Haka was genuinely interested in me, and they’re a very successful club. I had to take it.”
Even shortly after arriving, Stavros quickly realized how much this club meant to the surrounding community, and started to embrace his new life in Finland.
“When I was at the airport in Helsinki, the officer there was asking me a lot of questions and being very strict with me. I knew the town I was going to be staying in, but I didn’t have an exact address. I hadn’t even signed the contract to play for FC Haka yet. It was getting stressful because he was asking me all these questions, and I didn’t have the answers for him. But as soon as he found out I was going to play for FC Haka, he got really excited, let me through, and told me to score a lot of goals. You could really tell he loved the club and how much FC Haka meant to a lot of people.”
Valkeakoski is a small town about an hour and a half north of the capital, Helsinki, and it’s known for two things: its paper industry and FC Haka. And it didn’t take long for him to realize the perks of playing for FC Haka.
“There was one time I was flying my drone, getting some cool photos, and I didn’t realize I was in restricted airspace. An unmarked vehicle pulls up, and a woman gets out and immediately tells me to land the drone. She was pretty aggressive, so it was scary. She kept telling me to land the drone faster, but I couldn't land it any faster than it was already going. She asked me for my information and when she looked up, she realized I was a footballer for her club. As soon as she found out, her tone changed and was very polite to me. The situation diffused pretty quickly after that, but it’s still one of those moments that sticks out from my time in Finland.”
Despite the culture shock and not speaking the language, Stavros has been able to adapt quite well in his new country. He talks about how impressed he is with how the game is played in Finland and how much he’s enjoying FC Haka’s coaching staff.
“The coaching staff here is unreal. My understanding of the game is improving. If you were to ask me what my weakness is, it would be my soccer IQ and decision-making. And that’s what’s improving drastically over here, so I’m excited about that.”
Part of that development can be attributed to the incredible and experienced coach at the helm of FC Haka: Teemu Tainio. Tainio played all over Europe and the United States, including stints with Auxerre in France, Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland AFC in England, AFC Ajax in The Netherlands, and even a year at New York Red Bulls in MLS.
“He’s a legend, and I’m lucky to be playing under him. I’m enjoying it. I go to training every day and I think to myself: ‘what am I going to learn today?’ It’s something I haven’t felt in a while, it’s really refreshing.”
On Stavros’s first day of training with FC Haka, Taino picked him up from his apartment and brought him to training himself.
“I opened the car door and my jaw dropped,” Stavros mentions with disbelief. “It was my first time meeting him, and I was like ‘how am I going to talk to this guy?’ He played for Tottenham, he knows Thierry Henry, he played for New York Red Bulls, I was stunned.” Still, he adds it was “incredible to play under a staff with such high soccer IQ.”
Beyond the joy of playing in such an environment, Stavros also has no complaints about life in his new town. “It’s very much my style: it’s not posh, and it’s humble,” he says. “I get to play footy, I can’t complain”.
The positivity surrounding his first stint in Europe seems to be paying off. FC Haka ended up finishing 4th in the 2022 Veikkausliiga table with 45 points, with Stavros scoring 11 goals in 33 appearances in all competitions. This clearly pleased FC Haka, who exercised the option to keep Stavros for 2023.
On top of that, FC Haka was able to qualify for the Europa Conference League in 2023, which has Stavros excited. Not everyone gets to play in a European continental competition after all.
“I’m excited to measure up against other European teams and compete at an even higher level. It’s a golden opportunity for anyone, and I’m just looking to continue taking more important steps in my career.”
With the early success he’s been able to enjoy in his globe-trotting pro career, it’s safe to say his Greek hero’s journey is only beginning. And we can’t wait to see where it takes him next.
Photography by Luke Stergiou.
