The 2002–03 season was the 79th season in the existence of AEK Athens F.C. and the 44th consecutive season in the top flight of Greek football. They competed in the Alpha Ethniki, the Greek Cup, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup. The season began on 8 August 2002 and finished on 25 May 2003.
Kits
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Overview
For second season in a row with Makis Psomiadis at the wheel, who presented a very good team during the previous season. Despite the good performance in the last season, Fernando Santos resigned due to the disrupted relationship with the administrative leader of the club. Psomiadis afterwards made a decision that no one could initially believe and brought Dušan Bajević back to the wheel of AEK. The Bosnian-Greek coach accepted Psomiadis' proposal (having also received guarantees from Psomiadis that he would be protected from a portion of the fans who did not want him back) and his big return became reality. The return of Bajević received a divided reaction, as expected. Others did not want him at all in the club, others seemed to want him back due to his successful previous spell, while many seemed to viewed him strictly as a professional. Eventually, despite the problems he faced from time to time from a large portion of the crowd, in general, Bajević was able to work in the team during his first season without much trouble. Regarding the team's roster and the transfers of the summer of 2002, Carlos Gamarra left the team as his loan ended, while Akis Zikos, not having the best relations with Psomiadis, was also a thing of the past. On the other hand, Psomiadis made many impressive transfers such as Georgatos, Katsouranis, Borbokis, Wright, Centeno, Kreek, Nalitzis and Prieto.
AEK Athens presented a good and spectacular team with a very good performance and in the championship they had very good intervals. However, they were relatively behind in the title race, but eventually with an incredible streak of 12 wins in the last 12 games of the league, they re-entered the race finishing third, only 2 points behind Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, who were tied in first place, with the first winning the championship.
AEK once again had the opportunity to compete in the Champions League, but only if they passed the qualifying round. In the draw, where they were among the seeded clubs, AEK were drawn with APOEL. The first match took place in Cyprus, where APOEL took the lead from the beginning of the match, with AEK waking up and in one of the best matches of his career, Vasilios Borbokis took the team by the hand and with his two personal goals put AEK in front. The score was at 1–2, until the end of the game, but the finale was shocking. APOEL equalized with a penalty at the 90th minute, but AEK in the stoppage time with a goal by Nikolaidis got the 2–3 victory. In the rematch of Athens, AEK missed several chances but the half ended without a goal. Finally, AEK took the lead at the beginning of the second half and ceremoniously took the qualification to the Champions League group stage with a second victory by 1–0. AEK were drawn in Group C with the "galacticos" of the mighty Real Madrid, the historic Italian Roma and the Belgian Genk and achieved a historic record of drawing all six of the group stage games, but failed to qualify to the next stage of the institution finishing 3rd and continued to the knock-out stage of the UEFA Cup.