Marked for Anastasios Giakoumakis
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Oct 2040
A knee injury of the worst kind for Filip Artykiewicz
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Levadiakos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad8 Oct 2040
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom8 Oct 2040
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom8 Oct 2040
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Player ratings8 Oct 2040
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match6 Oct 2040
Beaten 3‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Match6 Oct 2040
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Levadiakos and Asteras, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad8 Oct 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levadiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Oct 2040
Words at Levadiakos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolay Popov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Sep 2040
A knee injury of the worst kind for Filip Artykiewicz
64 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Levadiakos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad17 Sep 2040
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Levadiakos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market17 Sep 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Levadiakos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 Sep 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levadiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Sep 2040
At 32 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings17 Sep 2040
Marked 8.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match15 Sep 2040
A 2‑2 draw with OFI leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings17 Sep 2040
Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings17 Sep 2040
He was not in the side at half past three and he had settled it before five. Half an hour, and Levadiakos had a different afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad27 Aug 2040
A knee injury of the worst kind for Filip Artykiewicz
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Levadiakos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market27 Aug 2040
The offer from Asteras for Ugo Lamare El Kadmiri was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad27 Aug 2040
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad27 Aug 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levadiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom27 Aug 2040
14 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad27 Aug 2040
Words at Levadiakos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolay Popov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market27 Aug 2040
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Panagiotis Diamantakos has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market27 Aug 2040
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Grigorios Ioannidis is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market27 Aug 2040
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Angelos Tzavellas has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Dec 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 62 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom5 Dec 2039
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Levadiakos
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad5 Dec 2039
A move Andreas Ioannidis would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Andreas Ioannidis is living that version at Levadiakos, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad5 Dec 2039
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad5 Dec 2039
“The easiest signature of my career.” Anestis Mythou and Levadiakos agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom5 Dec 2039
Wages eat 87% of everything Levadiakos earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match3 Dec 2039
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings5 Dec 2039
Shots: 11, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Market5 Dec 2039
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Levadiakos has been clear about where Anastasios Giakoumakis stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Oct 2039
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad3 Oct 2039
A fracture rules Evangelos Donis out for 71 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Levadiakos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad3 Oct 2039
Dimitris Emmanouilidis was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Oct 2039
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Viktor Rumyantsev and Levadiakos agree another 2 years.
The terraces3 Oct 2039
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Anastasios Giakoumakis has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings3 Oct 2039
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Oct 2039
Defensive actions: 13. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Match1 Oct 2039
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Volos NPS will be the happier side with the point.