If you have been following us for some time now you will know that every year, at the start of a new UEFA season, we highlight all the teams playing in the group stages that have a link to Greek mythology. And this year there are 16 teams playing in the group stages of UEFA competitions.

Usually we do a video about each and every team, but that would be waay too much this year. Instead, we will focus on teams we have never covered before, and link to previous posts that will cover 8 of the teams playing again this year (Ajax, Atalanta, Olympique de Marseille, Olympiacos, Sparta Prague, Roma, Lazio, Napoli). Please refer to these 2 posts from the last 2 years that cover the majority of the teams playing again this year (and some that are not):

UEFA 2021-22 season

UEFA 2022-23 season

In the past years you will notice that we had less teams listed per season. One of the reasons for that is that we recently discovered a whole new bunch of historical cities that have links to Greek mythology that we ourselves did not even know about. And that means that more teams have been included this year that were not mentioned in previous years because we did not know about them back then.

So the last 8 teams that will play this year along with the 8 we mentioned above are:

• Panathinaikos, Aris Limassol, Barcelona, Sevilla, Benfica Lisbon, Sporting Lisbon, Spartak Trnava, Olimpija Ljubljana

3 of the cities that particularly stand out from the list above are Lisbon, Barcelona and Sevilla. That’s because, as you will soon see, the link to mythology is much more clear in the other teams, but you would not think that Barcelona, Lisbon or Sevilla have anything to do with mythology at first glance. But all 3 cities have founding legends that take them back to a Greek myth.

Hercules is considered a founding hero of both Sevilla and Barcelona (which makes sense when you consider that the pillars of Hercules are featured on the Spanish Flag). There are probably more cities in Spain that have Hercules as a founding hero. Lisbon also has a founding hero from Greek mythology, but this time it is Ulysses, from Homer’s Odyssey. The legend says that Ulysses founded Lisbon during the Odyssey, naming it Olissipo, the latinized version of Ulysses. Visit our old blog post about the history of Lisbon (and more) to watch some interesting videos on that.

And now for a quick description of the last 4 teams and how they are linked to Greek myths.

• Panathinaikos is named after the Panathenian Games held in honor of Athena
• Aris Limassol is named after the Greek god
• Spartak Trnava is named after the Greek gladiator Spartacus
• Olimpija Ljubljana is named after the Olympic glory to Zeus

And there you have it, 16 teams that have links to Greek mythology playing in the regular group stages of this UEFA season! Enjoy the games! Visit UEFA’s website for more.