He was born in Thessaloniki and played youth football with Olympos Dendropotamou before starting his professional career with Iraklis. Papadopoulos was born in Thessaloniki and started playing football for amateur side Olympos Dendropotamou.
Papadopoulos spent his entire professional career with Iraklis and he is the all-time leader for Iraklis with 419 appearances. Papadopoulos is also the second all-time goalscorer of Iraklis with 64 goals. He managed to gain 5 caps for Greece.
Papadopoulos also had a brief career in management, as an assistant and caretaker manager of Iraklis and as a manager in second and third tier teams.
Early life and career
Following interest from PAOK he signed for Iraklis for a 600,000 drachmas fee. Iraklis
Papadopoulos joined the reserve squad of Iraklis, but he was soon promoted to the first team under Apostol Chachevski.
In December 1981 he made his debut for Iraklis against Kastoria. He managed to score his first goal for the club in his debut, but this was not enough to prevent Iraklis from suffering a bitter 2-1 away defeat.
He was mostly used as a striker in his first season for Iraklis and he scored a total of 9 goals out of 23 appearances.
In the next season he established himself in the starting lineup of Iraklis an he proved even more prolific, by scoring 11 goals in 30 matches. Later on in his career in the 1985-1986 season, under manager Telis Batakis, he had to addapt in a more defensive role as he started playing as a left wingback. Even from the midfield Papadopoulos scored 5 goals in 28 appearances for Iraklis.
In the later stages of his career he was placed in the centre of the defence of Iraklis, by then manager Dušan Mitošević.
At the end of the season he retired, having spent his entire professional career playing for Iraklis in a time span of 17 years. During these years he managed to become the all-time leader in appearances for the club with 419 appearances and the second all-time goalscorer with 64 goals.
Papadopoulos gained 5 caps for the Greek national team He made his debut on 11 October 1989 during an away 4-0 defeat from Bulgaria for the 1990 World Cup qualifiers.
He was the assistant manager in Iraklis during the Aggelos Anastasiadis era.
Also together with former teammate Savvas Kofidis he was the assistant manager of Giannis Kyrastas in Iraklis during the 2000-2001 season. After Kyrastas left the club in March Papadopoulos was appointed caretaker manager of the club He also had managerial spells for Kassandra, Kavala and Pavlos Melas.
Daniil Papadopoulos is the father of midfielder Giannis Papadopoulos.
Iraklis
Balkans Cup (1):: 1985
Greek Football Cup Runners up (1): 1987.
