Acknowledging his potential and in order to gain much needed experience, the team soon loaned him for two successive seasons to Kavala where he finished top scorer of the Second Division.

The 2003–04 season proved to be the best in many years, as the club finished an unexpected 3rd, qualifying for the Champions league, despite running on a very low budget.

His significance for PAOK was such that in the summer 2004 he was given permission to miss a match with the Greek Olympic team so that he could participate in the UEFA Champions League qualifiers against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

In the summer of 2006, as the club's president Giannis Goumenos was desperate to cash in, he was openly chased by Olympiacos, AEK Athens and Panathinaikos.

He transferred for a fee of €1.8 million, with PAOK additionally receiving Sandor Torghelle, Kostas Chalarambidis and Athanasios Tsigas as an exchange.

This transfer caused heavy turmoil amid PAOK fans, branding Salpingidis a traitor and ungrateful to the pains they had taken to keep him in the club.

On 30 November he scored a header, beating Heurelho Gomes, in a 2–1 win against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, after a cross from Giorgios Georgiadis, in the Europa League.

[7] The newly promoted Bundesliga side's general manager, Werner Wolf, claimed last week that there would be no more new arrivals at the Esprit Arena before the start of the 2012–13 campaign.

However, Goal.com has learned that Fortuna are currently trying to agree a fee with PAOK for Salpingidis, who was one of the stars of Greece's surprise run to the quarter-finals of Euro 2012.

[8] However, they are prepared to make Salpingidis one of their highest earners and it is believed that the player is willing to take a pay cut in order to at last try his luck in the Bundesliga, having been often linked with a move to Germany in recent seasons.

[10] Not a particularly attractive number, but one that carries a certain significance for the 32-year-old forward since it will move him up to fourth place in the competition's all-time appearances list.

Salpingidis had twice gone close to an equaliser, rattling the bar with a header, and, right before the interval, was millimetres away from turning in Miroslav Stoch's cross with the goal at his mercy.

Salpingidis had an additional year contract with the club, but there are a few problems appeared in the season and it seems that the final discussion will take place at the end of it.

[12] On 29 May 2015, just before the Superleague Greece play-offs, the international striker made a special program due to the discomfort in his operated toe, but could not be ready to help his club in the remaining games.

[20] Salpingidis’ next goal is to reach new international heights in Brazil three months from now, with Colombia, Japan and Côte d'Ivoire awaiting Greece as Group C opponents.

It won’t be easy, but we can do it.” Yet Salpingidis, who with four goals from nine games was his country's second-highest scoring player in qualifying, does not want to hog the spotlight.