At the age of four – he claims he remembers it very well and we have no reason to question him – he began to love football. George Koutsias was born on February 8, 2004 in Alexandria, Imathia. At the age of six he started training at the academy of his home town. He quickly continued at PAOK Koulouras, and in 2012 he moved to the PAOK Academy.

For the next four years he went back and forth daily from Alexandria to Thessaloniki. «The car was my home,» he says. «I slept there, I got changed there, I studied there,» he recalls. He was only 12 years old, in 2016, when he then started living in the PAOK Academy accommodation. Very young, but at the same time extremely mature to manage such a situation.

Showing consistency and dedication, Koutsias passed through every educational stage of the PAOK Academy philosophy, and he remembers vividly all of his special moments from matches, international tournaments, and finals. He has developed into a very capable center forward. With talents that other players envy, Koutsias is both strong and fast, with a healthy dose of ingenuity and perception of the game. He is characterized by a very good sense of where the goal is, and he demonstrates excellent finishing ability with a technique of high quality.

In eight of the ten tournaments he participated in as a youth player he was the top scorer and MVP. In the 2017-18 season, at 14 years old, he played in the Under-15 championship of the Super League, scoring ten goals. In the 2018-19 season he scored 28 goals and was crowned champion with the Under-15s. In the 2019-20 season he scored six goals in four matches with the Under-17 side and was crowned a champion. And he only played four matches because he was then quickly promoted to the Under-19 team, with whom he scored eight times and also celebrated the league championship.

Since the summer of 2020, when he first participated in the senior team’s pre-season preparations, he has belonged to the senior squad, as well as being available for the Under-19s. In fact, on August 10, 2020, in the friendly between PAOK and Volos, he scored his first goal for the senior men’s team.

Koutsias is also obviously a youth international, having represented his country in all of the age categories. He also impressed with his appearances in the 2020 European Championship qualifiers in Nafpaktos in November 2019 with the Greece Under-19 team. He scored two goals against Germany, but he was also singled out for his overall contribution to the team. It’s worth noting that he was Greece’s youngest international in that team.

PAOK, of course, were quick to secure his services longer-term and have «tied» Koutsias to the club until 2023.

On 18.09.2020, the «little one» came off the bench in a match against Atromitos and became the second youngest player in the history of PAOK to play in the Greek top flight. He was 16 years, 7 months and 10 days old, just one day older than Apostolos Tsourelas, who being 16 years old, 7 months and 9 days old, played in the PAOK-Doxa Drama match (1-0, on 24.02.1980). Koutsias is, however, the youngest to play in the league during the 2020-21 season, and he is the only player under 17 to do so, as well as the youngest to play in the last five years in the Super League.