If you’ve read my recent post, you’ll know that Doxa Vironos managed to win the championship very narrowly, leapfrogging Holargos in the season finale. As champions of the first regional division, they now get to compete against other champion teams for a spot in the third national division. You can read more about the format of these promotion playoffs here.

As much as I was upset that Holargos — who I had been closely following since the beginning of the season — lost the championship to Doxa, I still held sympathy for their side and decided to pay them a visit today. Their match was probably the most important — or at least the most interesting one — taking place in Athens today. Or actually, not quite Athens.

Aspropyrgos is an area outside the city, in the western part of the greater region. It’s known as a not-so-charming industrial town. Their team won the championship of Western Attica and is now also contesting for a spot in the Gamma Ethniki (third division).

Two friends and I set off by car and it didn’t take us much longer than half an hour to reach the stadium from central Athens. We missed an exit and ended up arriving around the tenth minute, but thankfully we hadn’t missed any serious action. It was all of our first time visiting Aspropyrgos, and I must admit that it’s indeed not one of the most idyllic parts of Greece I’ve been to. Although close to the city, it looked quite different from Athens and felt deserted — even though it was a Saturday. But we weren’t there for sightseeing anyway.

We went to the gate to buy tickets and managed to get them for half price by saying we were students — partially true. We were then directed by two cops to the stand allocated for visiting fans; I guess we didn’t pass as locals. Doxa had brought around 200 fans, including a respectable number of their ultras, who had brought their main banner and sang throughout most of the game. The home fans were present in good numbers too, located on the other end of the stand, while the sector between the two sides was left empty — to prevent any scuffles, I presume.

It was the third playoff match for Doxa and the second for Aspropyrgos (each team gets one break at some point, as the group is composed of seven teams). Doxa currently occupy third place in the group with four points, while Aspropyrgos are last with zero. A win would obviously have been precious for both, though neither side seemed decisive enough on the pitch.

Both teams had chances, but overall it was the visitors who applied more pressure and got closer to scoring. At times though — more so towards the end — it felt like their players were content enough with a draw. Aspropyrgos didn’t seem capable of taking more than a single point either.

The match finished 0–0, and the final whistle was followed by some tension between players and staff of the two sides, probably due to some controversial referee decisions. The tension then passed to the fans, where, somehow, the home supporters reached the fence of our end — but thankfully it was just a small-scale thing and didn’t get physical. Riot police made us wait at the exit until the home fans had left first and then we eventually headed back to the city.