Greeks are fanatical about football, both their own brand and the big European leagues. They have a particular affinity to the English game and Greek commentaries are sprinkled with English terms like "offside", "foul" and "hat-trick". Sadly, less savoury aspects of the game have also been adopted, and recently there has been an upswing in hooliganism, just as it has been on the wane in Britain, although it is usually of the destructive rather than murderous variety. An example of it was some rather ugly scenes before England's World Cup qualifier in Athens in June 2001.

 

Most Greeks claim to support one of the big three teams of greater Athens; Panathinaïkós, AEK or Olympiakós. The league title has only occasionally been snatched from the hands of this trio by one of the Thessaloníki outfits and gloriously in 1988 by Lárissa. Of late, the Pireás team Olympiakós has been in the ascendancy again, winning five consecutive championships in 1997-2001 under the expert coaching of Serb Dusan Bajevic, who was at the helm of AEK's similar hat-trick between 1992 and 1994. On either side of that, Panathinaïkós bagged two pairs of titles, completing the Nineties' carve-up.

Most fans stick to their armchairs or kafenío seats throughout the game, and matches are often surprisingly poorly attended apart from local derbies and European games. This makes it easy for the casual visitor to gain admission on the day and even the big matches are not too difficult to obtain tickets for. With Greek sides currently performing well in the Champions League - at the time of writing Panathinaïkós were clear at the top of their group having beaten Arsenal - the chances of catching a famous English, Italian, Spanish or German side in coming seasons remain good. Look out for kiosks in the centre of town selling advance tickets or details in the press