central defender michalis kapsis, a uefa euro 2004 winner with greece, played for both clubs. he left aek athens fc to join bordeaux immediately after his country's triumph in portugal, playing 29 matches in ligue 1 before moving to olympiacos 12 months later.
at manchester united fc, bordeaux coach laurent blanc scored the opener in a 3-2 win at olympiacos on 23 october 2002, his last goal in european competition. he also played in united's earlier 4-0 home victory as well as in the two games the previous season after the teams were again drawn in the same group, united winning 2-0 away and 3-0 at home.
blanc came up against olof mellberg three times while at united, the frenchman recording two wins and a draw against the swede's aston villa fc.
antonis nikopolidis was in goal for greece on 15 november 2006 when they went down 1-0 to france in a friendly in paris. alou diarra came on in the second half for the hosts.
yoann gourcuff and dudu cearense were together at stade rennais fc in 2004/05.
mellberg played for sweden in a 3-2 home friendly defeat by france on 20 august 2008. gourcuff and diarra were on the opposing side.
michal Żewłakow was in the poland team who lost 1-0 to a france side including blanc in a paris friendly on 23 february 2000. blanc was substituted at the break.
while with manchester united, david bellion faced panathinaikos in the 2003/04 uefa champions league group stage, winning 5-0 at home and 1-0 away. nikopolidis was on the other side. bellion's first league goal came in sunderland afc's 1-0 win against a villa team featuring mellberg on 28 september 2002.
didier domi spent eight seasons with paris saint-germain fc from 1995 to 2003 and faced bordeaux on eight occasions, winning once. however, he was in the psg team that beat bordeaux on penalties in the 1997/98 french league cup final.
jaouad zairi faced bordeaux on five occasions while at fc sochaux-montbéliard (2001 to 2006) and fc nantes (2006/07), winning three times and losing twice.
