Almyras Scores First Djurgården Goal in 2-0 Win at Brommapojkarna

By Taki Panos

Some goals are worth more than the scoreline says. On Friday night in Stockholm, Greek midfielder Christos Almyras needed only nine minutes to score his first goal for Djurgården, and it set up a 2-0 Allsvenskan win away to Brommapojkarna at Grimsta IP, as the club's own match report confirmed. Kristian Lien added the second goal in the 75th minute, per Aftonbladet. For a 21-year-old who moved to Sweden only three months ago, it was a very good night to remember.

If the name is new to you, here is the short version. Almyras was born in July 2005 in Thessaloniki, started out at PAOK and then moved to Aris in 2021, where he scored 17 goals in 46 games for the Under-19 side, according to Djurgården. He then played in the Greek second division with Makedonikos before joining Asteras Tripolis in the summer of 2025. Going from youth football in Thessaloniki to a Super League spot in Tripoli and then to Stockholm in about a year is quite a ride.

His rise was quick. Asteras sold him to Djurgården in July after 18 first-team appearances, with one goal and one assist, Gazzetta reported, calling it one of the most profitable deals in the club's history. Gazzetta put the fee at around 1.2 million euros, and Sport24 also described it as a sale of more than one million euros. Djurgården gave him a contract until 2030, per the club. That is real faith in a 21-year-old.

Friday was a chance for him to show why. Djurgården were missing Miro Tenho through suspension and Jeppe Okkels through illness, so coach Jani Honkavaara changed his lineup, the club explained. Bo Hegland moved out to the left, Mikael Marques stepped into central defense, and Almyras took the number 10 role behind striker Kristian Lien. There was also a first league start for 16-year-old winger Alexander Andersson, a detail Aftonbladet also highlighted.

The goal came from a well-worked set piece. Hegland chipped a free kick toward Adam Ståhl, who headed it on into the box, and Almyras was there to roll it past Brommapojkarna goalkeeper Leo Cavallius, as both Fotbollskanalen and Djurgården described it. Greek outlets to10 and Ta Nea put it in the ninth minute and noted that he finished with a calm placed shot from inside the area. Simple and clean.

Ståhl clearly enjoyed his part in it. "I headed it in and then the Greek god Zeus came and knocked it in," he said after the game, adding that "it looked like we had run it ten times, but it was imagination" (Aftonbladet, translated from Swedish). He gave a similar line to TV4, calling Almyras "the Greek god," Fotbollskanalen reported. It is not every week a Swedish defender brings up Mount Olympus after a game.

Almyras stayed busy after the goal. Around the half-hour mark he slipped a pass through for Andersson, but Cavallius came off his line quickly to stop the chance, Djurgården noted. He played until the 57th minute, when he and Andersson made way for Patric Åslund and Oskar Fallenius, a change confirmed by both the club report and Ta Nea, which said he had a generally good night as a playmaker behind the striker. A solid shift.

Brommapojkarna pushed more after the break but did not create many clear chances. Fallenius had the best one just after the hour and could not finish it, per Aftonbladet and Fotbollskanalen. Then, with 15 minutes left, the ball bounced loose in the box and Lien rolled it in for his 17th league goal of the season. Lien later admitted he had been unwell. "I'm not very sick. But a bit," he said, adding that he had not trained since the previous game (Aftonbladet, translated from Swedish).

The win kept Djurgården second in the Allsvenskan with 47 points from 24 games, seven behind leaders IK Sirius, who have a game in hand, according to the table published by Aftonbladet. It came five days after a Sunday derby win over Hammarby, Fotbollskanalen noted, and it was also Djurgården's 13th clean sheet of the season, per the club. Catching Sirius will be hard, but a Greek youngster scoring in a title chase is fun to watch.

The timing matters for Greece too. Almyras has been a key player for Giannis Taousianis's Under-21 side, and on October 1 he scored twice in a 4-2 qualifying win over Latvia in Livadeia, with goals in the fifth and 37th minutes, per Baltic Football News. Sport24 noted he started all five qualifiers he played after his March debut. Greece just missed direct qualification for the 2027 European Championship and will face Iceland in a two-leg playoff in November, the first leg in Iceland and the return in Greece, per the Hellenic Football Federation and Alpha News.

When he signed, Almyras described himself in one word. "If I limit myself to one word, I would say: 'Fighter'," he told Djurgården's website (translated from Swedish), adding that he prefers to play as a holding midfielder but likes to get forward as a box-to-box player. Sporting director Maximilian Hahn called him "one of the most sought-after U21 players in Greek football" in the same announcement (translated from Swedish). He joins a busy month for Greeks abroad, after Vangelis Pavlidis came off the bench to score for Benfica in the Europa League.

My take: this is exactly the kind of move more young Greek players should consider. Almyras did not wait years on a bench at a big club. He played, he grew fast at Asteras, and he went to a league where young midfielders get real minutes in a real title race. One goal does not make a career, and I would not expect him to score every week from the number 10 spot. But the signs are good, and his Under-21 form suggests the senior national team staff will be watching closely.

Next up, Djurgården host Örgryte at home on Saturday, October 24, then travel to IFK Göteborg on Wednesday, October 28, according to the club's fixture list. Then comes November and that playoff against Iceland with the Under-21s. For more on Greek players at home and abroad, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. The Greek god has arrived in Stockholm. Now let's see if he keeps it up.

Sources: Djurgården, Aftonbladet, Fotbollskanalen, to10, Ta Nea, Gazzetta, Baltic Football News, EPO.

Image: Djurgårdens IF crest, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).