11 teams from Greek-Roman mythology playing in Europe this season

A new UEFA season started, and as always, a fair portion of the teams playing this season are teams named from Greek/Roman mythology. This year a new league was introduced by UEFA as the 3rd tier league below Europa League, called Europa Conference League. If you have been following us for some time now, you will recognize many of the teams active this year from the last year. However there are some new ones this year.

Before we summarize the usual teams, let’s mention the new teams this year that were not active last season. Spartak Moscow, FC Flora and Olympique Lyonnais managed to qualify this year after an unsuccessful run last year. Spartak Moscow is named from the famous Greek gladiator Spartacus, featured in the movie starring Kirk Douglas from 1960, as well as the 2010 TV series. Olympique Lyonnais is like Olympique de Marseille and Olympiacos, named from the Olympics which used to be played in honor of Zeus in the ancient world. And FC Flora is named from the Greek-Roman goddess of flowers, who was known as Chloris to the Greeks.

Those are the new names this year along side the ones from last year. In Champions League we have Ajax, Atalanta and Juventus. Ajax is straight out of Homer’s Odyssey, Atalanta is the famous huntress of Artemis, and Juventus is named from Juventas, the daughter of Zeus (Jupiter to the Romans)

In Europa League we have Olympique Lyonnais, Olympiacos, Olympique de Marseille, Sparta Praha, Napoli, Lazio and Spartak Moscow. Olympique Lyonnais, Olympique de Marseille and Olympiacos are all named from the Olympic Games, dedicated in honor of Zeus. Sparta Praha is self-explanatory, named from the Spartans, Napoli is linked to the story of Parthenope the mermaid from Homer’s Odyssey, Lazio features the eagle of Zeus in its logo. And we already explained Spartak Moscow above.

Last but not least in Europa Conference League we have FC Flora which we already explained above. These 11 teams round up our list of teams named from Greek-Roman mythology that are playing in UEFA European competitions this season. Enjoy these videos dedicated to them below: