Impressed, the officials of the island's big team visited Kottis at the carpentry workshop where he worked and offered him a contract which he signed for a fee of 30,000 drachmas.

Kottis, hesitating to leave Rhodes and doubting his acclimatization in Athens counter-proposed the amount of 2,500,000, hoping for a setback from the President of AEK, who, to his surprise, agreed.

The then deadly attacking duo of Mavros-Bajević with the "short-tall" model immediately brought Kottis to the prime position of the competitor of Mavros for a place in the eleven.

His acquaintance with the later wife from Nea Filadelfeia relieved to him from the difficulties of the life in Athens and the awareness in the administration of AEK that a partnership like the Mavros–Bajević was almost impossible to re-exist, gave Kottis the opportunities he was looking for to participate in the yellow-black jersey.

This was followed by a trip to the other side of the United States, where he competed for two months in the US championship for New York City club Greek American AA and was paid 10 thousand dollars.

In all the games he played as a partner of Mavros in the attacking line of AEK, the two of them made it unimaginably difficult for the opposing defenses and the goal seemed to be a matter of time either from one or the other.