The first occasion was back in September 1981, with Terry Neill’s side defeating Panathinaikos 3-0 on aggregate in the UEFA Cup first round. Despite the firecrackers and din in Athens, our youngsters acquitted themselves superbly, with Brian McDermott and substitute striker Raphael Meade [below], who scored with his first touch in professional football by netting a bicycle kick, securing a 2-0 victory, before Brian Talbot netted the only goal at Highbury.

It would be 16 years until our next Greek encounter, as we lost 2-1 on aggregate to PAOK Salonika in the UEFA Cup. On the only occasion we have played a Greek club from outside the Athens region, Arsene Wenger’s team missed a host of chances in a 1-0 loss, and on a frenetic night at Highbury, Zisis Vrizas grabbed a late equaliser to steer his team through on aggregate, and send the knot of black and white scarf-wearing travelling fans in the Clock End wild.

After that we would do battle with Panathinaikos in three separate editions of the Champions League, including in our inaugural taste of the competition in 1998/99. In order to boost revenue, and see if we could attract large crowds with a new stadium being considered, we were granted permission by UEFA and the FA to host our home matches at Wembley Stadium. In our first "home" outing under the Twin Towers, 73,000 saw skipper Tony Adams and Martin Keown score in a 2-1 win, but our only other European victory that season came in a dead rubber which gave goalscorers Nicolas Anelka and Luis Boa Morte a chance to shine in an ultimately fruitless 3-1 success.

Since those games at the tail end of the last century, all of our Greek-themed matches have been against Olympiacos, based in the port city of Piraeus, some 10 kilometres outside Athens, providing us with a mixture of Greek triumph and tragedy.

This was encapsulated in our Champions League group stage meetings in 2015. Following defeat in Zagreb in our opening match, a 3-2 loss to the Red and Whites at Emirates Stadium appeared to have scuppered any prospect of us progressing. However, Wenger’s men had rallied by the time they travelled to Greece for their final group game three months later, on what was Olivier Giroud’s night.

The Frenchman headed home an Aaron Ramsey cross to give us a half-time lead, and following an excellent Joel Campbell reverse pass, slammed home a second and then a penalty to guarantee a runners-up spot in the group in a 3-0 win.

After knocking us out of the Europa League in 2020, Olympiacos were on the receiving end a year later in the last 16. Against a resilient home side, Martin Odegaard grabbed his first Gunners goal but we still required late strikes from Gabriel and Mohamed Elneny to give us a 3-1 lead after the first match in Piraeus. Once again, the Greeks proved obdurate opponents, winning 1-0 in N5 courtesy of a Youssef El Arabi goal, but we still squeezed through to the quarter finals.

In the tradition of close contests, it promises to be another highly competitive match between Arsenal and Olympiacos this week.