Missing Trip #5 - February 2018 Apollon Smyrnis 1 Levadiakos 1

 What a great trip this was to the seat of civilisation and we also got to meet up with Phil, who was here for the game later in the week between AEK and Dynamo Kyiv. We were at a more down-to-earth fixture though between Apollon Smyrnis and Levadiakos in the Greek Super League. 

Apollon are one of the smaller teams in the capital and are mainly supported by people who identify with coming from Smyrna, which is now part of Turkey.

The ground was a lot more homely than the AEK stadium that we also visited and quite away out of the city. It was also a bit rundown in that the promotion banner was left rotting net to a skip full of cut grass near the entrance to the mains stand. It really was 'proper football'. The game itself was notable for the fact that it was the first time that I had seen VAR in the flesh and was a precursor for what was to come in England. It was especially unclear here, as one of the Levadiakos players was sent off, but it was then rescinded. Nobody was particularly clear as to what was going on. 

The game itself finished 1-1 with Sebastian Bartolini scoring first for Apollon and Petros Giakoumakos getting the equaliser.

The weather was really nice, especially for February and at the same time Villa beat Blues in the derby. 







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