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my story is not a short one, but here goes anyway. in early 2010 my wife and I thought we'd take our 16 month old daughter to Greece to see my Yiayia. Thought, may as well get a holiday in and booked 4 weeks with some time on an island and in Athens as well as a stop in Paris to see my best friend who lives in London now. My folks said 'how about we come at the same time' while not ideal from a cramping our style point of view, there was a bit of on hand babysitting that could be done. Dad went over 3 months earlier being retired to see his mum, and my mum would fly over with us. A fortnight before we were supposed to fly out my Theia calls and says your dad has had a stroke and he's in the hospital in Drama. Mum and I fly out within 48 hours and spend the next week doing the nurses job for them in the hospital [never, ever get sick in Greece EVER the hospital in Drama looked like something out of an old school Eastern Bloc cold war era time]. Eventually we get Dad moved to the Diabalkaniko hospital in Thessaloniki and the place and doctors there are amazing. They put Dad in an induced coma and into the ICU for 2 weeks. During that time we can only see him for 30 minutes twice a day at very specific times. The hospital happens to be next to the Hotel Nikopolis so we stayed there so we could walk back and forth. I think I've mentioned this previously but this is where the players and coaches would spend the 24 hours previous to any home game or departure for any away game having meetings and other stuff. This was also during the playoffs at the end of the 2009/2010 season and there had been a Wednesday game at home to Olympiakos postponed for the general strike [the day some psychokhunt threw a molotov at a bank and killed people inside]. They rearranged it for a Sunday and so there were plenty of tickets available. I jump in the car and head to Toumba to buy a ticket. The guy asks me what kind of ticket I want. My answer a pair of the most expensive ones you've got as long as they guarantee me a seat. There was no way I was talking my wife to a game and going in Gate 4. So the day comes around and we jump in a cab to the ground and go in. The wall of sound is immense, we walk to our allocated seats and they're taken. Not being used to not being able to see anyone remotely looking like a steward/marshall/usher anywhere in site, I say to the guy, I think these are our seats. He laughs and says, listen mate I don't know what your ticket says but we always have these seats. Now I'm no hero especially with my wife there so I look further up the stand and there are plenty of free seats so we go a few rows further back and relax waiting for the teams to head out. My wife starts pissing herself laughing when the PAOK players come out to the strains of ACDC's Thunderstruck 'haven't they got any metal songs of their own?' The game starts and we are all over them like a rash, Lino was especially strong that day up and back like greyhound. Nikopolidis fluffed a clearance deflected by Filomeno that went to Muslimovic who slotted it. We dominated large swathes of the game but couldn't exactly relax on a one goal lead. However the scores remained unchanged and everyone left very happy [particularly as away supporters were banned during the playoffs] Below are some photos I took from the game and a youtube link to the highlights. I had been to see PAOK a number of times in Serres, but never at Toumba. https://youtu.be/8mpf_wUtJbI Meanwhile back at the hotel we were there for pretty much the entire playoff run so I saw the players around quite a bit. I even sat and had a coffee with Muslimovic [he really is one of the nicest people you could meet] in the bar. One of the girls that worked there gave my daughter a handful of karameles and told her to go and give them to Fernando Santos to see if she could get her to make him smile or laugh [she swore she had not seen him smile once in 2 years] and she got him to crack a smile, but no laugh, she even got a hug from Conceicao. Could you not laugh at this? It was the brightest part of a truly awful and horrific time.

Well my aunt lives very close to Toumba about a 8 min walk. I dont go to Greece often so i only watched 3 games in Toumba, all exhibition games since i was going in August. The game i will never forget was a game against Leicester that my cousin took me to and well he decided to take me into Gate 4. The things that happened in that Gate during that game i will remember for the rest of my life. First a young teen started climbing the netting and shaking himself on the netting while he was up there. Well what goes up must come down and when he came down about 3-4 guys literally starting kicking the s%$#! out of this poor kid. I mean klotsies the works. I turn to my cousin and say 'why are they doing this'?? The answer he comes up with is ' They just put that netting in recently , its new ' LOL Later in the second half the game was pretty much secured by PAOK , everybody in our row was pretty quiet. Well all of a sudden this guy in the row in front of us with no shirt and tatoos turns around and screams to us 'SIKOTHITE RE GAMOTO , PROTO FILIKO ' you could see the vein popping from the side of his head. Next thing i know im jumping and clapping and yelling as loud as i can fearing i would end up like that kid in the first half. Anyway was a day i will never forget and it was just a friendly!!!

So wait, are you saying a pre-injury Sebastian Leto would not look good on this team on the left wing? Or an Eki Gonzalez would not slot nicely behind Berg???

The first time I went to Toumba was October 3rd 1990. I was student law at Rotterdam University and got the opportunity to study abroad. I chose Athens. I wanted to look how life was in Greece other than in summer. As there was no schedule of starting lessons at the end of September I went to some cousins in Thessaloniki to visit them. I saw a friend of mine and he told me about the UEFA-cup match agains Sevilla. So we went. Kick-off 8.30 pm. Entered the stadium 6.30 pm because otherwise we could get disappointed. Gamo tis atmosferes. I could not believe my eyes. This is where I wanted to be more often. The game itself was not a very good one. After the promissing 0-0 in Sevilla a victory was al we needed and avoiding to recieve a goal. 0-0 after extra time. So penalties to decide the game. Unfortunatelly we lost. As my friend said. Best players must not take the penalties because there is too much pressure. And he was right. Our best players missed. The hardworking defenders scored. But we gave them an applaus as heroes. Later on in my life I must have attended another 15 games in Toumba. The past 8 years with my wife and kids. All dressed in the rige fanela!

Gyros, I can only conclude, based on the things you write, and the way and manner in which you write them, that it is in fact your soul that is filthy.

If I was a Syrian sunni Muslim then I'd probably join ISIS and if I was a Shia'a or a Kurd I'd probably be fighting against ISIS. But I'm just guessing when I say that, because its impossible to truly know what you'd do in someone else's shoes.

In 2008 I caught a train from Athens to visit Thessaloniki for the first time in my life. I have an interest in Ancient history and I've always wanted to visit the capital of Macedonia. I recall that the guy on the front desk of the hotel I was staying at was a Paoktzi. He gave me a map and circled Toumba and I decided to go on a walking tour of the city and take in the sights. It was mid-week and it was rather quiet around the stadium but there were other athletes (weight lifters and other sports) hanging around the ground. Toumba was impressive even though it looked a bit run down and I was only able to walk around the perimeter. I was surprised to see that Toumba, the Kaftanzogliou and Aris' Kleanthis Vikelidis are all a few kilometres apart. I walked between them easily. I visited Aris' store at their stadium but Paok's wasn't open. Iraklis' was I recall but I preferred to tour the actual stadium. It looked good. Renovated for the 2004 Olympics. There were a few athletic runners on the track and the goal posts were up. One of these days I will return and I'll make it a mission to see a match.

That's just it. We made a living off winning 1-0 against mediocre opposition. Even then we had trouble scoring goals, but at least we would eventually get that goal that just never comes now. You also mention luck, you're right. I recall a game at home to Slovakia where we won off the Slovakian keeper whiffing at a back pass for an own goal. Against Finland, we at least dominated possession, and usually possession means goals, or at least that you won't be giving up goals, but we still lost 1-0. They scored on their only real chance. You could say you want Karnezis to make the save, but I don't really think the goal was on him. The real joke was 20 shot attempts, but just 3 shots on goal, none of which were anything but routine saves for Hradecky. That's a creativity problem. We've always been short on creative players, but it's getting worse. This is why the Ninis and Fetfatzidis of the world have to be playing. Beats these Mantalos and Aravidis nobodies we're trying instead. NO idea what Tziolis was doing, and while Vyntra wasn't as bad as I expected, still looked out of place. We have 3 games left, can't qualify, but let's at least improve. Next game's goal should be to create a good scoring chance. Don't have to win, don't even have to score. Let's at least LOOK dangerous.

They do not like them because quite frankly they are extremely overrated by people like you. We have about 7 years of history on Ninis and Fetfazinho. We know who they are and they aren't that much. They are extremely inconsistent players who never turned out to be what everyone expected or hoped for.

I only saw the 2nd half, but Greece looked good. Bourousis and Koufos were dominant in the middle, both getting double-doubles, but perhaps that is more due to the Skopite's having awful big men. I am confident this team can beat Croatia in Zagreb next. Serbia beat Spain 80-70 in the big match tonight. Belijca went crazy.

This is exactly what the UN was created for. To stop situations like this. But in truth, it is a weak organisation that has mostly been used by the 5 nations that have veto power, to further their own ends. I don't think a lot of people realise the situation in Syria. It's Muslims vs Muslims. Shia vs Sunni. Hezbollah vs Isis vs Kurds. It's a mess. Why are they trying to kill each other ? Why is there so much hatred over religious issues ? As long as religion is a driving force for a nation, you will always have the potential for this. And it's not going to stop without some sort of outside intervention. If you just leave it to play out, things will continue as they are only worse. The UN/EU either have to get in there with troops, or pick a side and arm them to the teeth to end this. The EU should have been more pro-active from a few years ago. The situation in Syria is close to them, but they chose to bury their heads in the sand thinking it'll all be fine and it won't affect them. And now that it has, their best solution is knee jerk reactions. Let the country where the refugees land deal with it. Yep, no problem with that. Call me cynical, but now that Greece, Skopje and Serbia allowed the refugees to get closer to Germany, all of a sudden Hungary gets "hard core" with the refugees. More like as Germany saw they were getting closer, Germany either put the hard word or offered "incentives" to Hungary. That's their best solution so far. Cool, good luck with that. I will agree on one point that many posters bring up, and that is why don't the Syrian refugees stay in Turkey ? I find it odd that they wouldn't prefer to stay there. It's not like Turkey is a 3rd world economy. They would be safe, which should be their key concern, and there is a religious and "cultural" similarity between them. Sure, Germany is a better option, but do they really think they'll get there easily ? I wonder what role Turkey is playing in this. To other posters that say "just let them drown". It's easy to say that, and then you see the images of little Aylun Kurdi, and you think, what have we become ? We have to be better than that.