PAOK-Iraklís 5-1 (goodbye, home)

In a few hours I'm taking a night bus to Istanbul. I won't be back to Thessaloniki before late July. I had planned to write today a proper piece on this game I watched two days ago, but, it's early afternoon, I have already spent HOURS trying to take stuff out of my backpack, and I still need to work on it. Every time I leave home for a new trip, I promise myself to learn (le-what?) from previous mistakes, and, FINALLY, travel light. If I really-really mean to keep this promise today, first time ever, I need to take more things out, more, more, more... So, I'm keeping this super short...

This stadium (Toumba) is my second home, in the sense that I practically grew up in it. My parents' place is just a few blocks away. The first time my father took me there I still hadn't gone to kindergarten(!). During my entire childhood, we would NOT miss a home game of PAOK. My two schools from 12 to 18 were/are right next to it. And then, I started working as a sportswriter, and Toumba Stadium became my... office, since I soon became a PAOK reporter.

In this stadium I have felt absolutely everything from indescribable happiness to devastating sadness, to the point of tears. I have lost my voice from screaming, and have caused myself a bunch of bruises by hitting my hands on all sorts of hard surfaces out of nerves. I have hugged complete strangers while celebrating goals, and patted other complete strangers on their back as an “it's ok” consolation after heavy losses.

For all those reasons, and for many more, I love this place, and I intend to keep going back again, and again, and again, even when I'm old and I need a stick to help me walk (and miss half the on-field action because of back to back urgent visits to the toilet. Brrr...).

So, goodbye, and see you in July, home.

2010 mistake, corrected in 2013, in... Malindorea*

(*Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea)

Just like 2010, 2013 was a southeast Asian year for me, making Kuala Lumpur my home for nine months, and checking Air Asia's website on a weekly basis to “study” their latest offers. One huge difference was that in 2010 I fell into... football hibernation, going just to ONE game in a period of TEN months. Having learned from my mistake, I made sure to make 2013 much-MUCH more football-worth it...

Kota Bharu, Kelantan-Kitchee, AFC Cup, close to kickoff

In May, I made a short trip to the east coast, to “a category of its own” Kota Bharu, the “most Muslim city of Malaysia”, for which someone could say several positive things, and maybe some negative ones as well (depends on your perspective), but one thing no one can deny, not even the city's harshest critics, is that Kota Bharu loves football more than any other city in Malaysia, or, to be more accurate, loves its LOCAL team more than ANY other team in Malaysia is loved by its local city residents.

While football fans in almost the entire country are proud to put on the colors of their favorite English (or Spanish, or Italian) team, in Kota Bharu it's impossible to stand still for more than a minute, at any corner of the city, and not see someone pass by wearing the red and white jersey of local club “Kelantan”. The cherry on top for me, those few days I spent at Kota Bharu, was that I got to watch Dimitris Petratos, a young talented Greek-Australian striker, play with Kelantan, plus, I got to meet an extraordinary Catalan guy, Jordi, who, for his own reasons, made Kota Bharu his home for several months, and was a regular at the local stadium, wearing Kelantan's jersey, and carrying a Catalan flag...

Blue... sea at Shah Alam, in honor of Chelsea

In July, Chelsea visited “us” in Kuala Lumpur, and the way they treated the fans made me start liking them, even though, truth be told, I never felt close to Chelsea before that, they had never made my heart beat fast, not even the years they won trophies. When it came to “treating Malaysian fans” though, the club, everyone in the team, were fantastic, and that earned them many points in my head.

Barcelona and Malaysia come out. Neymar in, Messi... nowhere to be seen

Unfortunately, only the exactly opposite I can say about Barcelona, who also visited “us” in August. Even though I'm a Barcelona fan since the Romario/Stoichkov days, and have stood by them even in rough patches, during below-average seasons, the few days they stayed at Kuala Lumpur the club made me feel sick of them. From the moment they landed, until the moment they left Kuala Lumpur, with just a couple of notable exceptions (Neymar being one of those), they acted in a way that made it TOO obvious that they were there just to grab the money and run...

As for THE biggest disappointment, that was none other than Messi NOT playing, even though no one at the stadium knew why. Later, it turned out that he was slightly injured and Martino didn't want to take any risk, which of course is totally understandable. Still, the fact that no one from the team said anything about Messi NOT going to play, was seen by Malaysians as a sneaky trick to make them buy -expensive- tickets, tickets they might have NOT bought, if they knew Messi wouldn't be playing. At least Neymar did, for 45 minutes, and he was a joy to watch, making the crowd go “ooooooh!” a number of times...

Police officers, trying to push back Persija fans

Next, I got the chance to watch two games at Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia, with the first one being one of the most memorable I have ever watched, not only because of the violence/singing/violence (again)/duration of the match (it finished more than three hours after kick-off, because some hot-headed Persija and Persib fans felt like ripping each other's guts out), but also because of the... surreal feeling of going to the stadium with a Serbian(!) diehard fan of Voždovac(!!), and a few more (Javanese) members of the local Greek-Orthodox community(!!!). For Lord's sake, there are Indonesian Greek-Orthodox Christians in Yogyakarta(!), and we went to a violence-marred football game together, along with a Serbian(!!) who was living there at the time... What were the chances...

Suwon, a little... melodious piece of Argentinian “canchas” in Korea(!)

September was Korea month, got to watch four games, and my most memorable experience was at Suwon, where, just after kick-off, I heard the “ultras” of the local Bluewings sing something that sounded awfully familiar... Amazingly, they had “adopted” tunes that are super popular in Argentinian (mostly, less in other South American countries) stadiums, they had dressed the tunes up with Korean lyrics, BUT, they had kept “campeón” in Spanish. They even had the lyrics on the stadium's big screens, so I could see an endless bunch of those super cute Korean characters, and then, in the middle of that all, a “campeón”, sticking out like a big black fly in the middle of a glass of milk...

Baseball fun at Seoul. Yes, those ARE plastic bags some “Lotte Giants” fans are “wearing”

On November 24, I watched my last (until now) game outside of Greece, a simple friendly game between Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, with the imposing Petronas Towers clearly visible, even at seven kilometers away (as the crow flies). If the on-field action is disheartening, if the cloud is dark, there is -almost- always a silver lining somewhere there for you to spot. On that November night, the... cloud was depressing, but my good company, a few dozen fans singing, and the sight of the majestic Petronas Towers far in the horizon, played the silver lining's role exceptionally well...

The Filipinos are  N U T S  about basketball, and the collegiate championship games I watched at Manila's “Mall of Asia Arena” more than made up the lack of chances to catch any football matches in the country

103 to 114

103 Kelantan-Kitchee 0-2, Kota Bharu, Malaysia, 2013, May 14
104 Kelantan-Selangor 1-1, Kota Bharu, Malaysia, 2013, May 18
105 Malaysia-Chelsea 1-4, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2013, July 21
106 Malaysia-Barcelona 1-3, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2013, August 10
107 Persija ISL-Persib 1-1, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2013, August 28
108 Persija ISL-Pelita Bandung 2-1, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2013, August 31
109 Busan IPark-Jeonbuk Motors 1-3, Busan, Korea, 2013, September 15
110 Suwon Bluewings-Incheon United 1-1, Suwon, Korea, 2013, September 22
111 Seoul-Esteghlal 2-0, Seoul, Korea, 2013, September 25
112 Incheon United-Pohang Steelers 2-2, Incheon, Korea, 2013, September 28
113 Malaysia-Bahrain 1-1, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2013, October 15
114 Kuala Lumpur-Selangor 0-1, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2013, November 24

Dead and gone to -Euro 2012- heaven. Heaven!

One glorious April 2012 morning I checked my email while being in Sucre, Bolivia, and I read some news that made my heart start beating THAT strongly, that it felt as if any second then it would just... jump out of my chest. UEFA had approved my Euro 2012 accreditation application!! I was going to my first ever major tournament, I was going to Poland and Ukraine!!

Back in December, when I applied and chose the group games I would like to watch, I picked one at Warsaw, Poland-Greece, the first game of the tournament, and six in Ukraine. After that initial positive reply I had received from UEFA for the tournament pass, I started receiving every morning a new email, letting me know if my “match-specific” applications had been approved. One week, seven notifications, seven “yes”...

“Yes”, “yes”, “yes”, “yes”, “yes”, “yes”, “yes”. YES!!

Euro 2012 opening ceremony, the... “appetizer” before Poland-Greece

Ended up watching a total of ten matches, including a quarterfinal and semifinal in Donetsk, and the final in Kyiv. “Happy, happy, happy, 10-year-old opening his Christmas presents-happy, that much that if I have a heart-attack towards the end of the match, I will 'go' with a stupid smile on my face...”, I wrote on my facebook account that July afternoon, before kick-off. I guess I could have skipped the... macabre “heart-attack” thing, but... exaggerations-aside, the final was the pinnacle of a “beyond my imagination” month, final which, amazingly, was my “game attended abroad number 100”! Back then I had no idea. Only recently I realized it, when I counted the games I've watched outside of Greece. A Euro final, what a way to mark a... “century”...

Casillas, on his way to pick up the trophy

After that, I could afford the... luxury of sticking around Ukraine a bit longer, so I didn't miss the chance to watch two championship matches, in Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa. What's ironic today, as I'm writing these lines, is that I'm... torn, half feeling deep love for that country, eternally grateful for the -possibly unrepeatable- moments of utter excitement it gave me, and half terribly sad, heavy-hearted, because of what is going on there these days(...). Sigh... Deep one...

Football-aside, that Euro 2012 month was priceless for another reason, the people I met, people who opened their homes to me, people who hosted me, people who shared their life with me for a few (some even several) days, and played an “as major as it gets” role in my crazy “Euro 2012” dream coming true.

One of them is celebrating her birthday today, January 22, Agnieszka, my Warsaw host-companion-cook-caretaker-problem solver (astonishing in each and every one of those), and, ever since then, good-good friend, the kind of friend I expect-hope to still have in my life and be in close contact even when I'm in my late 80s and need someone else to write her my emails, typing my words... (unless she realizes way before that what I lousy friend I make, and stops wasting her time with me. Good thing is she's not THAT clever -come on Agnieszka, either way no one is reading this blog, so it's not like I'm bad mouthing you to anyone :-)- so chances are she's stuck with me for life -the poor thing).

91 to 102

91 Poland-Greece 1-1, Warsaw, Poland, 2012, June 8
92 Germany-Portugal 1-0, Lviv, Ukraine, 2012, June 9
93 Ukraine-Sweden 2-1, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2012, June 11
94 Netherlands-Germany 1-2, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 2012, June 13
95 Sweden-England 2-3, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2012, June 15
96 Denmark-Germany 1-2, Lviv, Ukraine, 2012, June 17
97 Sweden-France 2-0, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2012, June 19
98 Spain-France 2-0, Donetsk, Ukraine, 2012, June 23
99 Portugal-Spain 0-0 (2-4 pen), Donetsk, Ukraine, 2012,June 27
100 Spain-Italy 4-0, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2012, July 1
101 Dnipro-Tavriya 3-1, Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, 2012, July 15
102 Chornomorets-Volyn 0-2, Odessa, Ukraine, 2012, July 28

No hay mal que por bien no venga...

(something like “there is no bad situation out of which a good thing doesn't come”)

While football-touring eastern and central Europe in September and October 2011, one of the things I enjoyed the most was meeting locals (and other travelers we happened to be visiting the same place, same days), members of couchsurfing.org. For my own reasons, I chose to stay at hostels, didn't ask anyone to host me (which you can do), but I did meet people in practically every city I visited. At Budapest, I was lucky to meet someone who turned out to give me that last little extra push I needed to go on with an idea I had been toying with for some months...

Seeing how miserable my life in Greece was, I kept thinking how great it would be if I could get a little job elsewhere, make just enough to rent a little apartment, experience what it feels like to LIVE abroad, not just travel around long-term. One of the places I had at the top spots of my “to consider” list, was Buenos Aires...

Martín was in Budapest/Europe on vacation. Along with a third CSer, a local girl, we met up, and when I told him I had it in the back of my mind to “settle down” at “his” Buenos Aires, he jumped into inviting me to stay at his place(!). It was just... too good to be true. He looked serious about it, but... I hardly knew him, so I chose to... hold a small basket...

Early November, when I returned to Greece, I got in touch with him, and that's when I realized that he really meant what he had suggested when we met in Budapest. Sometimes, what it looks too damn good to be true, is -amazingly- just that, true. In a matter of days I had bought my plane tickets. I had decided to give it a try, make Buenos Aires my home for at least six months, find some source of income, maybe writing for Greek websites from Argentina, with which my own... troubled country shares a lot in common, especially since the day the IMF... took Greece over(...).

Halftime rest (after singing most of the previous 45 minutes) for fans of Lanús, at Estadio Ciudad de Lanús – Néstor Díaz Pérez, aka "La Fortaleza"

Before the end of the month I was at Buenos Aires, which, last time I had been there, had felt “home” to me (there is only one more city I can say the same thing about, and that's Melbourne, which I failed to make home-home in 2004).

The idea was to start working as soon as possible, but as it usually (almost always) happens with my... ambitious ideas, it remained just that, an idea...

Soon, I knew I didn't have it in me to find a job there. I could have, I should have, and I would have if I had just a little bit more self-esteem, but I didn't. That's the “mal” part of the title, the “bad situation”...

Perfect for football late February afternoon at Estadio Monumental, home of Colo Colo

I felt the least I could do was travel, go see a great friend at Rosario, and then visit countries I hadn't been to before, Chile, Peru, Bolivia. That is the “bien” part of the title, the “good thing that came out”...

So I did, headed west, meeting people, watching football, feeling a bit “lost” (truth be told, since I was supposed to have returned to South America to work, to “live” there, not to go on yet another long backpacking trip), but... definitely enjoying myself. Mid May, I had made a big loop, and had reached my final destination, Rio de Janeiro, where yet another great friend hosted me for a week. In something more than five months I had watched 23 games, anything from Copa Libertadores to Chile's Primera B (second division), experiencing several “highs”, and one lamentable “low”...

Estadio Hernando Siles, the... nightmare of many a non-Bolivian team, because of La Paz's... dizzying altitude and its effect on players who are not used to that

On March 25, 2012, I got attacked and robbed just a few blocks away from Lima's National Stadium, on my way there to watch Sporting Cristal against Real Atlético Garcilaso. What's... hilarious, I reckon, is that the guys who attacked me, as they were fleeing the scene, dropped the ticket of the match which I had pre-bought at some shopping center, so... (here comes the hilarious part) after cleaning the blood off of my elbows and knees, despite the shock and my totally screwed up psychology, I... well... went to the game either way (but left during half-time, to go report the incident to the police, not because I expected them to do something about it, but because I just couldn't sit and do nothing about it. I had to do SOMETHING, no matter how pointless it looked -and was indeed).

I must belong to the 0.01% of foreigners who have been to Cuzco but did NOT go to nearby Machu Picchu (had my reasons). I did go see Cienciano, though

As for “highs”, too many to mention here, so I'll just share one, an as memorable as it gets scene at Cuzco's stadium, where an old indigenous couple were sitting in front of me, half watching the game and half picnic-ing, with the lovely granny explaining to her husband in Quechua and using nervous gestures, what exactly was going wrong with local side Cienciano, and why they couldn't score against Unión Comercio. I repeat, an indigenous, granny, in Quechua, opening her husband's eyes, decoding for him Cienciano's wrong way of trying to score. Priceless. One of those scenes that make a football game unforgettable, no matter how lethally boring the on-field action may be...

Engenhão, Rio de Janeiro, return leg of the Carioca championship finals between Botafogo and -grand victors- Fluminense

68 to 90

68 Lanús-Olimpo 0-0, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011, December 3
69 Independiente-Newell's Old Boys 1-1, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011, December 4
70 San Lorenzo-Independiente 0-1, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2011, December 8
71 Arsenal Sarandí-Sport Huancayo 3-0, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2012, January 24
72 Rosario Central-Sportivo Desamparados 2-1, Rosario, Argentina, 2012, February 6
73 Godoy Cruz-Peñarol 1-0, Mendoza, Argentina, 2012, February 16
74 Universidad Católica-Junior 2-2, Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2012, February 23
75 Colo Colo-Universidad Concepción 1-2, Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2012, February 25
76 Unión Española-Universidad Católica 2-2, Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2012, February 26
77 Coquimbo Unido-San Marcos 1-1, Coquimbo, Chile, 2012, March 3
78 Alianza Lima-Unión Comercio 3-2, Lima, Perú, 2012, March 24
79 Sporting Cristal-Real Atlético Garcilaso 3-0, Lima, Perú, 2012, March 25
80 Universidad San Martín-Sporting Cristal 2-1, Lima, Perú, 2012, March 31
81 Universitario-Cobresol 3-2, Lima, Perú, 2012, April 1
82 Cienciano-Unión Comercio 0-0, Cuzco, Perú, 2012, April 8
83 La Paz-The Strongest 1-3, La Paz, Bolivia, 2012, April 15
84 Bolívar-Universidad Católica 3-0, La Paz, Bolivia, 2012, April 17
85 San José-Bolívar 3-0, Oruro, Bolivia, 2012, April 22
86 Real Potosí-Universitario 2-1, Potosí, Bolivia, 2012, April 29
87 Universitario-Aurora 2-1, Sucre, Bolivia, 2012, May 3
88 Aurora-La Paz 1-1, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2012, May 6
89 Oriente Petrolero-San José 2-1, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 2012, May 9
90 Botafogo-Fluminense 0-1, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2012, May 13

Sixty days, ten countries, 17 games, one... heck of a time

Early May 2011 I was back home, Thessaloniki, where I convinced myself that my moral obligation as an only child, was to quit traveling and spend more time with my rapidly aging parents. I had already spent something more than two years on the road, two YEARS, even though my original plan back in mid April 2009, when I left Greece, was to... study Spanish in Guatemala, have fun in 3-4 Spanish speaking countries, and be back in four months. FOUR months, not TWENTY-four...

Soon, I got myself a little job in a sports website, or, to be more exact, “little” in paying, but “BIG” in how many hours per day I got to work. Mind you, I'm talking about seven days a week, seven, days, a, week, absolutely no days-off...

Before April 2009 I was used to having a PROPER job, a relatively well-paid one, I used to rent my own little apartment, have a nice car, and spend money practically on anything I wanted. Two -traveling- years later, what I made could hardly be called “pocket money”, I hardly moved the car simply because I couldn't afford it (the gas price in Greece had skyrocketed), I had to count the last euro cent I spent, and worst of all, I had to stay with my parents, which I found humiliating, totally demoralizing, despite the fact that my parents are two angels, and did their best to make my stay at home as comfortable as possible...

Mid August I hit rock bottom, you know, the point that you are so depressed that you can't find it in you even to get out of bed in the morning, half because you didn't get enough sleep (spinning around in bed the whole night), and half because you simply have no interest in living the next 24 hours... To make matters worse, Greece was already in deep s***, unemployment was breaking record after record after record, and the overall atmosphere was ages of light beyond “gloomy”...

That's when it “hit” me. I HAD TO do something to bring me back from the world of the living dead, I had to do something to make me HAPPY, and nothing made me happier than traveling, wandering aimlessly around new places, hearing new languages, seeing new faces. If I could do that, mix it with football, and make some money out of it, there was not much more I could ask for...

Euro 2012 qualifiers, Romania-France, first game ever played at Bucharest's impressive newly built National Arena

In a couple of hours I had come up with a rough itinerary, which, starting on the 1st of September and going all the way to the end of October, would find me watching football games in almost a dozen eastern and central European countries. Losing no time, I shared the idea with my back then boss. He didn't exactly love it, he preferred me staying put and working ten hours per day, seven days a week, but I would hear none of that, I had made up my mind. Before hanging up, he had agreed to keep paying me while I would be on the road, sending him pieces from every city I'd be visiting. I was over the freaking moon!!

September 1st I hit the road. Two months later, returning home, I had lived, simply put, two of the most exciting months of my life, two for my “Months' Hall of Fame”, having lived dozens of moments that make life worth living...

The... controversial “Żyleta” stand of Legia Warsaw, just before kick-off of their Europa League game against Hapoel Tel Aviv (hence the “Jihad” banner)

Thessaloniki, Sofia, Bucharest, Cluj, Chisinau, Kyiv, Lviv, Warsaw, Lodz, Prague, Berlin, (back to) Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Belgrade, Thessaloniki. Sixty days, ten countries, 17 games, anything from... Euro 2012 qualifiers (Bulgaria-England, Romania-France, Czech Republic-Spain), to... Moldovan championship, from Europa League to Germany's second category, and from huge derbies (Dynamo Kyiv-Shakhtar Donetsk, Ferencvaros-Ujpest, Legia-Wisla), to Ukrainian and Serbian Cup. Bliss...

Ferencváros fans and players go crazy after their third goal against bitter rivals Újpest

Truth be told, the money I made wasn't even enough to cover all my expenses, FEW expenses (staying at hostel dorms, taking cheap buses/trains, choosing my meals carefully based on their cost, using my international Press card to get accreditation from every single club to watch their home games), but... really, I couldn't care less. Those two months I won back my thirst for life, and that's something you can't put a price on...

A little bonus to my... football tour, my first ever hockey game, watching Sparta Praha at home

50 to 67

50 Galatasaray-Liverpool 3-0, Istanbul, Turkey, 2011, July 28
51 Bulgaria-England 0-3, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2011, September 2
52 Romania-France 0-0, Bucharest, Romania, 2011, September 6
53 Rapid Bucharest-Brasov 1-1, Bucharest, Romania, 2011, September 10
54 Steaua Bucharest-Schalke 0-0, Cluj, Romania, 2011, September 15
55 Zimbru-Rapid 0-0, Chisinau, Moldova, 2011, September 17
56 Arsenal Kyiv-Oleksandria 5-0, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2011, September 21
57 Dynamo Kyiv-Shakhtar Donetsk 0-0, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2011, September 24
58 Legia Warsaw-Hapoel Tel Aviv 3-2, Warsaw, Poland, 2011, September 29
59 Legia Warsaw-Wisla Krakow 2-0, Warsaw, Poland, 2011, October 2
60 Czech Republic-Spain 0-2, Prague, Czech Republic, 2011, October 7
61 Union Berlin-Karlsruhe 2-0, Berlin, Germany, 2011, October 15
62 Bohemians-Dukla Praha 0-0, Prague, Czech Republic, 2011, October 16
63 Viktoria Zizkov-Slavia Praha 1-0, Prague, Czech Republic, 2011, October 17
64 Slovan Bratislava-Paris Saint Germain 0-0, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2011, October 20
65 Ferencvaros-Ujpest 3-0, Budapest, Hungary, 2011, October 22
66 Partizan-Metalac 3-1, Belgrade, Serbia, 2011, October 26
67 Partizan-Smederevo 3-1, Belgrade, Serbia, 2011, October 29

“Abducted” by Venezuelan goddesses (I wish...)

Mid December 2009 I was back home, Greece, having spent the last eight months in Latin America. I had loved it, truly, deeply, genuinely loved it, but after deciding that I would NOT be going back to work, not just yet, I felt I needed a... change of air. I didn't have a specific destination in mind, but when I found Athens-Kuala Lumpur-Athens plane tickets for less than 400 euros, there was nothing left to think about. Southeast Asia it would be!

2010 turned out to be a year pricelessly rich in experiences. From January to November (with a short break in June to return home and see my parents) I got to spend most of my time in Malaysia, but also Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and China, ten months pricelessly rich in experiences, I repeat, BUT, equally poor in visiting stadiums and watching games “live”.  How poor? “One single match in ten months” poor. Told you. POOR.

Selangor-Kelantan, at the vast Shah Alam stadium

Early December, having “de-latinamerican-ized” myself for a year, I felt South America was not just calling, but SCREAMING my name again (postponing yet once again staying in Greece, settling down, looking for a job, going back to having a “normal” life). So, like that, feeling an urge to visit countries I hadn't been to before, I found myself spending five months in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, visiting places, making friends, and of course, watching football...

In two weeks from today I will be back to Colombia, and early April I will be back to Ecuador too, so in THIS post I have the... “luxury” to skip commenting on the 13 games I watched in those two countries in 2011, including my first Copa Libertadores ones, in Quito, LDU's triumphs over Peñarol and Godoy Cruz (years before I started making a living writing Copa Libertadores match previews). I don't have plans to return to Venezuela though, at least not in the near future, so, there you go, writing about the two games I watched at Valencia and Caracas, I have something embarrassing to admit. At Valencia, I missed all four goals(!!!!), and at Caracas I spent ridiculously little time paying attention at what (lethally boring) was going on within the four lines(...).

At Valencia, watching (supposedly) Carabobo host Estudiantes de Mérida, I missed all four goals for the simple (better put, “embarrassing”) reason that my attention was constantly “abducted” by the dozens of... models who paraded at the stands, girls who looked like they were about to compete in that year's “Miss Venezuela” beauty contest, and were just taking a break from their preparations, allowing us, “common mortals”, take a close glimpse of them. Put in a nutshell, the girls had nothing to do with any beauty contest, but looked gorgeous, read my lips, virtually, I say “g o r g e o u s”, so, shame on me, guilty as charged, shoot me, I missed all four goals (and didn't exactly mind).

Carabobo and Mérida players, listening to the national anthem (I was too much of a chicken to take photos of the REAL “stars” of the game, the sexy female fans)

At Caracas, Real Esppor and Deportivo Lara didn't offer any goals (and hardly any real threats to the two goalkeepers), which made me feel more free to spend my time at the stadium the way I really wanted(...). “Drooling over more gorgeous women, for sure”, I can easily imagine  you think. Actually, no(!)...

Some time ago, parts of Venezuela had been hit by a natural disaster, many people had lost their homes, and the government was in the middle of trying to find a permanent solution to all those families' emergency housing situation. Until then, people had to live SOMEWHERE, so, the Caracas authorities had arranged for many families to find temporary refuge at “Brigido Iriarte”, the stadium that Real Esppor call home.

Where exactly? In between the two tiers, on both sides (Iriarte has stands only on the two “big” sides, not behind the goalposts). So, there I was, watching the game, more like... PRETENDING to be watching the game, while a few meters behind me, a mother was cooking, a father was watching something on TV lying down in bed, and kids were playing at a corner of the same bed. All there was between us, the fans, and the families living there, was a curtain, or a piece of sheet, used as a curtain. Some families had it pulled down, so you couldn't see what was going on inside their “home”, other families had it pulled up, not really(?) minding the few (either way) fans who were there to watch a football game, and after the final whistle they would be going back to their... real homes, unlike the ones those unfortunate families had to call “home”, lacking a better alternative.

Fans, curtains, “homes” hidden behind curtains

They had space for a bed, toilet facilities, cooking facilities, and basically, protection from the rain and other elements of nature. If once a week they had to put up with a few football fans for a couple of hours, I guess that was the least of their worries...

What an experience... The more I think about it today, the more... surreal it feels...

While in Venezuela, I didn't miss the chance to attend a game of the king of sports in the country, which is no other than baseball. There was a game at Maracay when I was there, I knew how BIG baseball was/is in Venezuela, so, that was an opportunity not to be missed. Was it THAT worthy as I expected it? I'm leaning towards “yes”. The atmosphere was “warm”, the stands were practically full, the fans were “participating actively”, so... despite the fact that I'm not a die-hard baseball fan, I consider the bolívares fuertes I gave for the ticket, money well-spent.

Beautiful January baseball night at Maracay

Oh... Did I mention that the stands had even more “models” than the ones I had seen at Valencia's football stadium? Minor detail (rrright) that played its role in my enjoying the late afternoon/early night that much...

In the end of that trip, late April, just before returning to Greece, I spent a week at Miami as well, where I watched an NBA play-off game between the Heat and the Sixers, my first (and only, until now) NBA game, the cherry on top of yet another dreamy trip.

Obviously, I got one of the cheapest tickets

34 to 49

34 Selangor-Kelantan 1-1, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2010, July 10
35 Carabobo-Estudiantes de Mérida 3-1, Valencia, Venezuela, 2011, January 23
36 Real Esppor-Deportivo Lara 0-0, Caracas, Venezuela, 2011, January 30
37 Cúcuta Deportivo-Millonarios 0-1, Cúcuta, Colombia, 2011, February 13
38 Santa Fe-Atlético Nacional 0-0, Bogotá, Colombia, 2011, February 27
39 Millonarios-Boyacá Chicó 3-1, Bogotá, Colombia, 2011, March 5
40 Deportivo Cali-Itagüí 1-0, Cali, Colombia, 2011, March 6
41 Brasil U17-Chile U17 2-1, Ibarra, Ecuador, 2011, March 16
42 LDU Quito-Peñarol 5-0, Quito, Ecuador, 2011, March 17
43 Deportivo Quito-Imbabura 3-2, Quito, Ecuador, 2011, March 19
44 Universidad Católica-Grecia 2-0, Quito, Ecuador, 2011, March 20
45 Deportivo Cuenca-LDU Quito 0-2, Cuenca, Ecuador, 2011, March 23
46 Emelec-Manta 2-1, Guayaquil, Ecuador, 2011, March 27
47 Manta-LDU Loja 2-0, Manta, Ecuador, 2011, April 2
48 Barcelona-Independiente 1-1, Guayaquil, Ecuador, 2011, April 10
49 LDU Quito-Godoy Cruz 2-0, Quito, Ecuador, 2011, April 12

Dear 2009, thank you SO much for GABUPing me

(alternative title, “Satisfying my footba(u)llimia in G-uatemala, A-rgentina, B-razil, U-ruguay, P-araguay")

Early January 2009, right after returning home from a three weeks' vacation at Australia and New Zealand, I made a choice which today feels like THE most important I have made in my life up to now, the one that turned out to change my life more than any other. I left the newspaper I had been working for for years, accepting an offer/invitation from my ex boss, who was setting up a team to start a new paper...

The project looked promising, and even though I knew how competitive the environment was/is, with too many sports papers in Greece trying to lure a very small reading population, I thought the new paper would do more than just “well”. We never found out. Before the end of February, I, and everyone else at the paper, people some (several) of who had left other (better paid) jobs to move there, were left unemployed. The two people who were backing the project financially, “had changed their mind”(???!!!).

It was Monday afternoon when we were told, Monday nights were the nights I used to play mini football with colleagues and others, so I did that night too, thinking “now what?” I had an idea in the back of my mind, I had been toying with that idea for some time then, I slept on it, and in the morning I knew how I wanted to spend the next few months... Studying Spanish in a Latin American country, and traveling around at least three countries practicing what I would have just learned.

After doing my... research online, I decided that the country that suited me best to have the classes, was Guatemala, and the city, Quetzaltenango (also known as Xela). During my time there, I got to watch two games of the local Xelajú, loving not so much what was going on on the pitch (the level of football was so low that I honestly felt if I were a few years younger not only I would be good enough to play there, but moreover I would be a local star -I and my big mouth...), but the whole atmosphere, the A+++ people-watching opportunities, plus, the view of mountain/volcano peaks all around. Xela feels... encircled by towering mountain peaks, as if cut-off from the rest of the world, a cut-off place in the middle of a mountainous nowhere, where on a gloriously sunny midday, families, young couples, friends, people of all backgrounds and different skin shades, even blonds (foreigners who are spending months there either studying or volunteering at some local hospital) gather at the stadium. You've got to love it...

Xela, Guatemala, beautiful May 2009 Sunday

As for what I mean by “A+++ people-watching opportunities”, I could dedicate a whole entry to what I saw at Xela's stadium, but I'll just share this: a young indigenous (you could tell by her facial characteristics and by what she was wearing) woman, who to me looked like a little girl, was going up and down the stands carrying a little wooden box full of little things, cigarettes, matches, gums, stuff like that. On her back, she had one of those typical “manteles” the women there use, to carry stuff, and, occasionally, their babies :-). So, the little shorty girly was going up and down, with the wooden box in front of her, and two little-tiny-small baby feet hanging from the “mantel” on her back. At some point, she just sat at some stair, put the wooden box aside, brought her baby in front, and just like that, in the middle of a packed stand, started breastfeeding the baby. Go figure...

After four  i n c r e d i b l e  months in Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and the US (where I got to watch baseball games at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington DC), I was supposed to return home, look for a job, settle down again, blah-blah-blah. Eeeeeeh, nnnnnnno.

The truth is, I got greedy, I told myself “it's now or never. I always wanted to travel long-term, but I always lacked either time, or money, or both, so... it's now or never. Four more months won't hurt”. So, late August I was in Brazil, Salvador da Bahia, to study Portuguese (and basically enjoy life. I had been to Salvador before, and it was -still is- my favorite city in Brazil), before moving slowly south all the way to Buenos Aires, and then “up” to Asunción, finishing at São Paulo.

Brazil-Chile, World Cup 2010 qualifiers, Salvador da Bahia

It almost... hurts :-), not writing a single word for at least some of the games I watched between September and December 2009, most of them deserve (I reckon) a separate blog entry, but since day one of this blog I have come to terms with the fact that very soon (January 23) I'm leaving again, and I will have new football (and not only) stories to share, leaving hardly any spare time for “yesterday”...

What I find comfort in, is that sooner or later I will go back to Brazil (soon), Uruguay (later), Argentina (went back already, but I'm not... done with the country yet :-)), and Paraguay, so at some point I'll find the chance to include some “flashbacks” to older games I watched there, not because... millions of blog readers are holding their breath waiting to read how I managed to... for example, get one of the last tickets for Newell's Old Boys-Rosario Central, but because I feel I need to take those stories out of my chest, I feel I owe it to myself to do that. So I'll do that (even... excruciatingly slowly).

  Newell's-Central, Rosario, the... epitome of local derbies

19 to 33

19 Xelajú-Municipal 1-0, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 2009, May 24
20 Xelajú-Suchitepéquez 3-1, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 2009, May 28
21 Brasil-Chile 4-2, Salvador da Bahia, Brasil, 2009, September 9
22 Atlético Mineiro-Santos 3-1, Belo Horizonte, Brasil, 2009, September 27
23 Flamengo-Fluminense 2-0, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2009, October 4
24 Flamengo-São Paulo 2-1, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2009, October 10
25 Internacional-Grêmio 1-0, Porto Alegre, Brasil, 2009, October 25
26 Peñarol-Defensor Sporting 1-1, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2009, October 31
27 Nacional-Cerro 2-0, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2009, November 1
28 Boca Juniors-Colón 0-0, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2009, November 8
29 River Plate-Atlético Tucumán 3-1, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2009, November 15
30 Newell's Old Boys-Rosario Central 2-2, Rosario, Argentina, 2009, November 22
31 Nacional Asunción-Sportivo Luqueño 1-0, Asunción, Paraguay, 2009, November 28
32 Guaraní-Olimpia 3-1, Asunción, Paraguay, 2009, November 29
33 São Paulo-Sport Recife 4-0, São Paulo, Brasil, 2009, December 6

PAOK-Panetolikós 1-0 (like eating pizza in Havana)

There I was, at Toumba stadium, yesterday, watching the last minutes of “my” PAOK's championship game against Panetolikós, wondering what I could write about this game. “We” were 1-0 up since early in the second half, sure, we WERE winning, we were minutes away from our 14th win in 19 championship matches so far this season, three more points were about to be earned, but... all I could think of for this blog entry, was eating pizza in Havana(!)...

Back in July-August 2009 I spent two Unforgettable (capital “U”) weeks at the enchanting capital city of Cuba, and since I was traveling on a tight budget, I chose to eat every day at places where the locals would eat, paying in “CUP” (this is how it appears on websites like oanda.com, “Cuban Peso”), skipping places where tourists would eat (and pay in “CUC”, “Cuban Convertible Peso”).

Now, if you haven't been to Cuba, this CUP Vs CUC thing may be... Greek-Chinese to you, so... let's just say that a meal in a “touristy” restaurant, paid in CUC, can, at best, be “affordable”, even if you are traveling on a tight(-tight) budget. A meal in a “where locals eat” place though, paid in CUP, is (at least “was”, back in my days there), “d i r t  c h e a p”, costing no more than a few cents of a euro. Literally. Personally, I chose to... “eat like a local”, save a big deal, and spend it on other... joys of life, other than food.

“ΠΑΝΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΕΙΟΣ ΑΘΛΗΤΙΚΟΣ ΟΜΙΛΟΣ ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥΠΟΛΙΤΩΝ” (“Pan-Thessalonican Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans), the... tongue-twisting full name of PAOK (ΠΑΟΚ)

I did have to eat, though, and one of the easiest/cheapest ways out of feeling hungry was grabbing a pizza or two, small ones, easily THE poorest pizzas I have eaten in my life. Poor or POOR, two of those were more than enough for me. Upon finishing them, I was no longer hungry. Sure, I hadn't really-really enjoyed a... memorable culinary experience, a minute after wiping my mouth I would have forgotten all about it, but the truth remained, I was no longer hungry, I could hunger-free go on and enjoy other things that I thought mattered more (than food).

PAOK did win, that 1-0 didn't change, but despite the glorious blue sky (the game started at 3pm), the “friendly” temperature (14-15 Celsius), and the plain joy of just being in my second home (Toumba stadium), despite all these, the afternoon felt... “spoiled” by what was a lethally boring (more like “lethargic”) PAOK performance, which made the fans boo right after the ref's final whistle.

The hunger for points had been satisfied, we had gone from 42 to 45, but the “meal” that had made the hunger go away (until next weekend), had truly been pitifully poor...

Iraklis-PAOK 0-1 (like having sex in a public place)

(taking a break from walking down my memory lane, since yesterday I watched my first game in 2014, in Thessaloniki, Greece, and have a little “fresh” story to share)

If you ask me, watching an “away” game of your team surrounded by dozens, hundreds, thousands of the home team fans, is like having sex in a public place, and not just in any country, but in certain countries where “having sex in public places” is PARTICULARLY wrong, say... Middle Eastern hardcore Muslim ones (not that I have ever tried the latter). You're definitely enjoying it, but you do know that if you get “caught”, it won't be just “awkward” and “embarrassing”, but downright dangerous...

At least that's the case if you are a PAOK fan, and you're watching your team play at Kaftanzoglio stadium among thousands of Iraklis fans, many of whom, and not just the most fanatic of them, simply detest PAOK (“detest” in this case rather being an understatement).

It was a Cup game (Iraklis are playing in the second category this year, so no championship duels between the two neighbors -our stadiums are just over a thousand meters away, as the crow flies- this season), round of 16, first leg. How many fans showed up? A few thousand, “several” by Iraklis' standards, fans, many of whom, I bet, would have skipped paying the 10-15-20 euros for a ticket, if it wasn't for the name of the opponent, and what a game against PAOK means to them(...).

Oh... How many PAOK fans made it to the stadium, you wonder? “Officially”, none. You see, in Greece, home teams are not obliged to give tickets to visiting teams. It's really up to them, depends on whether or not two clubs are getting along with each other, whether or not they are linked with some historic ties, what their organized supporters feel about each other, and even if two teams agree on having, both of them, fans on their side, in the end it comes down to the police to say the final “yes” or “no”.

What the atmosphere looked (and smelled) like, just before kickoff

In yesterday's case, PAOK asked for tickets, but Iraklis, simply, declined the request. Of course, any PAOK fan could... dress moderately, skip carrying a black and white scarf, avoid bringing along anything with the batch of the club, go buy a ticket, and enter, BUT, PAOK fans could not watch the game as a separate group, sitting at some specially allocated part of the stands. How many dared the “on my own, so help me God” thing? No idea. Just before the hour mark, PAOK scored, that was the only goal of the match, I looked around curious to see if anyone would jump out of his seat and spontaneously shout “goal!” (which later he would seriously regret), but I didn't see any...

As for me, I may be unemployed these days, but I can still use my Press pass to watch games. In the first half, I chose a super quiet corner of the stands, a few meters away from the closest fans, but when one of “my” players hit the horizontal post I aaaalmost disclosed my... secret identity.

The second half I watched it standing at some densely “populated” part of the stands (so as to be closer to the part of the pitch where PAOK were attacking), and what... saved me when we scored, was that the goal was... spectacularly UNspectacular, just a little kick of the ball from a super close distance after a parallel cross, plus, it took me a second to... make sure the goal was good, that the assistant ref had not raised his flag for an offside.

Besides, no one else was celebrating, for a few seconds it was like someone had pressed some “mute” button, and then, hesitantly, some Iraklis fans started yelling in disappointment, so... a little this, a little that, the first “crucial” 10-15 seconds passed without opening my mouth (or doing any “expressive” gesture), so... my butt was safe.

All in all, I'm glad I went, I got to watch my team (despite the fact that I'm used, by now, to them not playing attractive football, no matter if we are second in the championship, behind only Olympiakos), I got to visit a stadium I hadn't been to for almost ten years (last time I watched a game there, was during the 2004 Olympic Games, USA-Brazil, 2-0, women, group stage. Later on they faced each other again, in the Gold Medal match, and the US won again), plus, I got to “test” a new small Nikon photo camera I recently bought, see how it “performs” in “night matches” conditions. To the camera I give a good mark, to the stadium atmosphere... mmmm... not really. When I was younger, Kaftanzoglio used to be full when Iraklis faced PAOK, with more than 30,000 fans of both teams creating a tense, true, occasionally, but definitely “worth experiencing” atmosphere. Yesterday, with a big part of the stands “deserted”, and with PAOK fans nowhere to be seen and heard, the atmosphere... let's say... “left a lot to be desired”...

Losing my... transatlantic football virginity

“I advise you against going there. That's a particularly unsafe neighborhood, especially after dark”, the owner of my Rio de Janeiro hostel told me, June 9, 2007, when I asked him how I could reach “São Januário”, the legendary stadium of Vasco da Gama. It goes without saying, I totally ignored him, half because I thought he was exaggerating (as if I, a first-time Rio visitor, knew better than him, a resident of the “Cidade Maravilhosa”), half because I knew that was my only real chance to see Romário play, even at the age of 41 (and a half).

I had been in love with “Baixinho” ever since my early teen years, seeing him score amazing goals for PSV. Later on, it was he and Stoichkov who made me a Barcelona fan. Plus, in 1994, he and Branco were my favorite Brazil players, the ones who, more than any other Brazilian “jogador”, made me a “Seleção” supporter. Oh, and did I mention he actually saved -quite possibly- my life the moment he scored against Sweden in that World Cup semifinal?...

A few weeks earlier, my parents had bought me new furniture for my room. One of the pieces was “hanging” above my bed, nailed to a closet on one side, and a smaller piece of furniture on the other. It had lots of space to put stuff, left, right, in the center, and I -stupidly- filled its central part with dozens of issues of some Greek basketball magazine I used to be nuts about back then...

The dozens of magazines were THAT heavy (added up), that in just a matter of days the furniture (hanging above my bed, let me remind you), started looking like a soft couch on which you sit, at the very centre of it, causing a significant “curve”. I could tell I had gone too far, but again, stupidly, I thought it wouldn't get worse, that I would just stop putting more magazines up there, and the furniture would stay put. I was wrong...

At 4-something, AM, in Greece, as I was watching the game on TV, Brazil scored, and I instinctively jumped out of bed to celebrate it. It was about ten minutes to the end, so it was kind of a relief. Two seconds later, my celebrations were cut short. The overweight furniture had fallen(!), and the spot where my head was a couple of seconds earlier, was then “occupied” by the side of the furniture that had just come crumbling down. Whether or not I sound overly dramatic, I genuinely fear that if I hadn't jumped out of bed to celebrate the goal, I wouldn't be writing these lines right now(...). Romário(?) had just saved(?) me...

What was hilarious though, was that my parents, terrified, came running to my room, saw what had happened, my mother was left in shock asking me again and again if I was ok, while my father only asked me once if I was ok, and then he started asking questions about the game (gosh, I'm laughing like an idiot even these very seconds as I'm bringing the scene back to my mind, almost 20 years later :-)), enraging my mother who couldn't believe that we were still focused on the game, despite what had just happened. Moms...

So, I did go to São Januário, and I did see Romário score twice in Vasco's 4-0 triumph over a practically... indifferent Grêmio side. The team from Porto Alegre, four days earlier, had qualified to the final of Copa Libertadores at the expense of Santos, and only three days later they were facing Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires, in the first final. In other words, Amoroso, Lucas Leiva, and their team mates, couldn't care less about the game against Vasco.

Football, yes, but “Australian Rules”, at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), Aussie rules football's “Maracanã”

That was the first ever football game I attended outside of Europe (in 2004 I went twice to “Australian Rules Football” games in Melbourne, loved it SO much, but... you know, that wasn't  “my” football). Next day, a 32-year-old guy, tall and long-haired and not shaved for days and with his arms full of tattoos, couldn't help but shed a tear or five, as he laid his eyes first time ever on the... “Holy Grail” of us, football-fanatics, as far as visiting football stadiums-”temples” goes...

Inside the... “Stadium of stadiums”

Fluminense were playing at home against Sport Recife, they had just won the “Copa do Brasil”, so I took the metro, got off at “Maracanã”, walked up the stairs, left the station behind me, and there it was, on my left, the stadium I had, more than any other, dreamed of visiting one day, ever since I was a kid, and saw on TV, first time ever, highlights of the 1950 World Cup final (even though the last game between Brazil and Uruguay was not REALLY a final, but... anyway), when “200,000 people filled the biggest stadium in the world, only to leave it devastated”.

If you must know, I'm not making the “shedding a tear or five” thing up. Truly, my eyes got wet, as I stood there, in awe, a couple of hundred meters away, seeing my presence there as proof that I could dream anything I wanted, even visiting the most mythical place in my teenage, several years ago, mind, and I could go for it, I really could...

Jalisco, the historic home of Guadalajara. Not (even nearly) as... fancy as their new stadium, but a beauty of a stadium nevertheless

Almost a year later, my transatlantic matches went from two to four. I had chosen Mexico for a three weeks' trip, and I couldn't miss the chance to watch the “Chivas” at Guadalajara, and América at Mexico City, at another “temple” of world football, the Azteca stadium. What's funny is that I actually “ditched” the game at halftime(!), because that was the only day I could enjoy a Mexican “must”, a “Lucha Libre” afternoon, so between staying at Azteca only for the first 45 minutes and not going at all, the choice was rather obvious...

At Azteca, wa(aaaaa)y before kick-off

By the way, early May 2008, on my way back to Greece from Mexico, I spent a dew days at New York City as well, and didn't miss the chance to watch my first ever baseball game, and not just at ANY park, but at the “old” Yankee Stadium, the last season of the Yankees there, before moving to their new home.

15 to 18    

15 Vasco da Gama-Grêmio 4-0, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2007, June 9
16 Fluminense-Sport Recife 3-0, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2007, June 10
17 Guadalajara-Puebla 4-0, Guadalajara, México, 2008, April  26
18 América-Monterrey 1-0, Mexico City, México, 2008, May 4

The early “PAOK-nuts, boss-sponsored” years

Hardly enough to pay for my monthly bus pass. That's how much, well, “little” (if not “close to nothing”), I was making when I started working as a sportswriter, in the summer of 1994, before turning 19. It took me years before starting making real money, and I laugh (now) remembering that I NEVER got paid on time, not one single freaking month, not, one, I kid you not, plus, for years I didn't know what a “day off” was, let alone “vacation” (only on national holidays I got to skip work, because, well, the newspaper would be closed those days), BUT, truth be told, being a super lowly (and with ridiculous delay) paid sportswriter did come with a bunch of perks...

First of all, less than two months after starting working, I got kind of “promoted” from writing about Greece's third football category, to writing about PAOK(!!!). Now, in case you are not familiar with Greek football, let me help you get what the “(!!!)” stands for. Writing about the football team of PAOK in Thessaloniki, is as big (in this city) as writing about the Yankees' baseball team in New York, or the Lakers' basketball team in LA. Mind you, that was back in internet-less days, when being a PAOK reporter felt too damn special, partly because there were so few of us (unlike today). Add to that the fact that “PAOK” was the third word I pronounced after “mom” and “dad” (my parents' place was/is just a few blocks away from PAOK's stadium), and you get an idea how  O V E R  T H E  M O O N  I was to have the job I had (despite the pennies I made).

If writing about my beloved club wasn't dreamy enough, the traveling soon started...

Parenthesis... My parents love me to bits, and despite the fact that they were always struggling to make ends meet, they always treated me like a little king, offering me everything I wanted, and more (sometimes they got me stuff even before I had enough time to ask for it!). The only thing missing from my childhood was traveling. When I was 12 we went on vacation with my father for a -super memorable- week. That was it. My last summer vacation as a kid. After that, every summer all my friends would go spend weeks at some coastal place, and I was left back in Thessaloniki, kicking a ball from early in the morning until well after dark, sometimes with company, sometimes alone. If it sounds sad, it really wasn't, because back then I couldn't imagine a better way of spending my time than kicking a ball, so, in a way, I was exactly where I wanted.

Still, the traveling part of the job came as an amazing bonus. I first got on a plane when my newspaper sent me to Athens to cover a game of PAOK. Soon, another flight to Athens followed, and another flight to another city, and another, and another, not to mention the road trips to places closer to Thessaloniki. And then, in 1997, THE perk came along... Traveling abroad...

“ESTADIO SANTIAGO BERNABEU, REAL MADRID – TENERIFE, JORNADA 7, TEMPORADA 97/98”

My first (well, ONLY, until now) game at... mythical Santiago Bernabeu. Cañizares, Roberto Carlos, Hierro, Sanchís, Panucci, Redondo, Seedorf, Zé Roberto, Raúl, Mijatović, Morientes, Karanka and Šuker played that day for RM. Morientes, Mijatović and Seedorf scored their three goals

Madrid in 1997, Bucharest and Glasgow in 1998, Roma/Perugia, Barcelona/Lleida and Tbilisi in 1999, Jerusalem/Haifa, Udine, Amstedam/Eindhoven and Podgorica in 2000, Porto and Zurich in 2002, Aosta in 2003, Tel Aviv in 2004. Not too many, given that this is a seven years' period we are talking about, but especially the 1997-2002 trips... “made my year”, not just my week or month.

Now, I can imagine how “traveling on your boss's money to watch a football match and interview members of a football team” may sound AWESOME to most of you (the “traveling on your boss's money” I'm sure it appeals even to the non-football fans among you, even though I seriously doubt you're reading this blog and have reached this part of this piece if you are NOT a football fan), but, believe it or not, before turning 28, I asked my boss to consider sending others abroad(!)...

I guess to some of you this may seem as crazy as... having Miss Venezuela 2013 as your girlfriend and telling her that you are breaking up with her, Miss Venezuela for crying out loud!, how more absurd could it get?!, BUT, in cases like this, what crosses my mind is a line I first heard Charlie Sheen say in a “Two and a half men” episode. Some would call it “sexist”, I call it funny. “For every gorgeous woman out there, there is a guy tired of banging her”... No doubt, traveling abroad for a newspaper was a seriously “gorgeous woman”, but at some point I did get tired, for a whole bunch of reasons that I will mercifully spare you.

1 to 14

The first 14 football games I watched outside of Greece, between 1997 and 2004. In some of the trips I mentioned above, I didn't get to watch any matches, instead I just interviewed members of teams that PAOK were about to face in UEFA competitions. As for Podgorica, it was a basketball game I watched/covered, Budućnost – PAOK, November 9, 2000.

1 Atlético Madrid-Mérida 4-0, Madrid, Spain, 1997, October 15
2 Real Madrid-Tenerife 3-0, Madrid, Spain, 1997, October 18
3 Atlético Madrid-PAOK 5-2, Madrid, Spain, 1997, October 21
4 Spain U21-Greece U21 1-0, Bucharest, Romania, 1998, May 31
5 Rangers-PAOK 2-0, Glasgow, Scotland, 1998, August 11
6 Perugia-PAOK 0-0, Perugia, Italy, 1999, August 2
7 Lleida-PAOK 2-5, Lleida, Spain, 1999, August 6
8 Lokomotiv-PAOK 0-7, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1999, September 16
9 Maccabi Haifa-Beitar Jerusalem 0-0, Haifa, Israel, 2000, September 9
10 Udinese-PAOK 1-0, Udine, Italy, 2000, October 24
11 PSV-PAOK 3-0, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2000, November 23
12 Dragões Sandinenses-Leixões 0-0, Porto, Portugal, 2002, September 8
13 Olympique Marseille-PAOK 5-1, Aosta, Italy, 2003, July 26
14 Maccabi Tel Aviv-Helsinki 1-0, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2004, August 4

First, baby step

It's days like this that a certain song crosses my mind, a Ricardo Arjona (Guatemalan) song, titled “Hoy es un buen día para empezar”, “Today is a good day to start”. Start what? Something I feel I should have started a heck of a long time ago, when I was still traveling abroad to cover football matches for newspapers I used to work for, or even in 2007 when I watched my first ever football match outside of Europe (Vasco da Gama – Grêmio, in Rio de Janeiro), making -soon- watching football one of my top priorities while traveling, no matter if I found myself in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or the Far East. So, start what? This very blog...

Today I'm just making a baby step, feeling that if I leave it for another day, if I... miss the golden opportunity the first day of a new year gives for a fresh start, to do something I've been working on in the back of my mind for quite some time now, then... most probably, knowing myself, I'll end up not starting it at all. As in, never. So, I chose a title, a cheeky description (“cheeky”, because I feel I'm sounding full of myself, boasting for the 114!! games I have watched in 33!! countries, as if there aren't out there countless other football nuts who have watched innumerably more matches in considerably more countries), I'm adding two-three little paragraphs and a photo, and basically I'm... experimenting, finding my way around blogspot, before... getting down to business, sharing my “football (and not only) tales”.

“ESTADIO VICENTE CALDERON, 15-10-1997”

The “entrada” and “palco prensa” seat I was given by Atlético Madrid for their home game against Mérida. My first ever mission abroad for a newspaper (PAOK, Thessaloniki's biggest team were playing against Atlético a few days later), game number 1 in my “matches attended abroad” list

One thing is for sure, the matches I have already watched will be “covered” super superficially, partly because soon I will have my hands full sharing new stories. Before the end of January I'm leaving Greece (where I have spent very little time the last five years) again, for another six months' journey, which, this time, will find me watching football (and just having plain fun, hopefully, along the way) in Turkey (just three games during a long weekend), and mostly in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil again, where I'm dreaming of catching a minimum of ten World Cup matches in June and July. Have I bought tickets for all those matches? Eeeeh, nnnot exactly(...).

The first day of a super promising year, es un buen día para empezar indeed...