It was around this time last year when my friend Sofoklis and I would venture into Piraeus to watch three games in one day. I guess not much has changed since then; that’s what I was thinking while trying to come up with a schedule that would fit four games into one day, a personal record. That proved to be too ambitious, though, as I woke up feeling ill and exhausted at 11:00, almost three hours after the first alarm I had set. That was certainly a bummer, but not enough to fully cancel my ambitious Sunday plans. I pulled myself together, picked up Sofoklis and headed south-west, for what was meant to be the second match of the day.

I was particularly excited to visit this stadium, as it’s one of the “big” ones of Piraeus. What I’ve always found strange is that, although it’s called the Nikaia Municipal Stadium, it’s primarily home to Proodeftiki, the team of Korydallos, whose hated rivals are Ionikos from Nikaia. The only logical explanation I can think of is that the ground lies right on the border between the two neighbourhoods. Proodeftiki is an old-school club, notorious for their clashes with neighbours Ionikos in the 80s and 90s, as well as for the hostile atmosphere of their stadium during the golden era of Greek hooliganism. It wasn’t them playing today, though, but Doxa Peiraia, one of the many small amateur sides of the port area, and the atmosphere was very far from hostile.

Today, Doxa faced Aris Amfialis, in what was an almost entertainingly poor match. Aris have an impressively bad goal difference, having scored just two goals in nine matches while conceding 30. As you can imagine, the game was completely one-sided. The visiting side could barely move past the halfway line, but the problem was that Doxa seemed incapable of making much out of their opponents’ incompetence. The home side eventually scored the only goal of the encounter in the second half; a goal that seemed extremely offside but was nevertheless deserved.

The rest of the match was rather uninteresting, with the home side having done their part and the visiting team incapable of threatening at the other end. By that point, all I could think about were the snacks I would devour at a nearby bakery later, to make up for the breakfast I’d skipped in order to be there.