Panionios 1-0 Iraklis ( att : 2,017 )

February 19, 2017

On a return trip to Athens we made a return visit to Panionios. Nearly everything was very similar to last time. There was the usual queue to get a ticket ( this time they seemed to have run out of change ! ) and Mrs Fatbear again watched the game through the window of the bar and on the TV in the bar. Once change, Panionios now also print the name of their foreign players in roman script. Still no programme/teamsheet either.

This was a match between 2nd from top vs second from bottom. Iraklis is actually the Greek name for Hercules and they come from Salonica.

Bakasetas, Panionios' star player from last season is now a bit player at AEK, who were in 8th place before the weekend games ( Gus Poyet left AEK before the start of the season ) and in his place Panionios have a player on loan from Olympiakos named Ben. He is from the Comoros islands and the Olympiakos manager who signed him was sacked soon after, and Ben has not found favour with the subsequent managers and has been offloaded on loan. However, in the first half he was by far the best player on show. Too fast and too skilful but with a tendancy to overdo the fancy stuff. Panionios could have been 4 up in the first 10 minutes but showed why they had only scored 28 goals all season. The Iraklis keeper saved bravely at the feet on players through on 1:1s and it seemed only a matter of time before the first goal would arrive.

Iraklis hung on for 30 minutes when the ref decided to get involved. First a red card for a fairly harmless foot-up and then play was waived on when Ben was about 2 yards offside and he scored to give Panionios the lead.

1-0 at Half Time against the second bottom team with only 10 men, you would have expected Panionios to run riot in the second half. Er no….. Ben was moved to left wing and never touch the ball again except to take corners and free-kicks and Panionios sat back for the 1-0 win. Not much happened in the second half although towards the end the home goalkeeper did have to punch away a few corners and free-kicks and Iraklis missed an open goal with 5 minutes left.

But Panionios held on and celebrated as if they had won the World Cup. They stay in second place.

The beer in the bar is called Fix, you can make your own punchline !

Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTTRBmqsiU4