Levadiakos Draw 0-0 With Volos, Go a Record Seven Games Without a Goal

By Taki Panos

Seven matches, zero goals. Read that again, because it is now a line in the Greek football record books that nobody in Livadia wanted. Levadiakos drew 0-0 with Volos on Saturday in the opening game of matchday 7 of the Stoiximan Super League, and the blank means they have not scored a single league goal in seven rounds, a new all-time worst start for the Greek top flight, as Sport24 reported. They managed it while playing almost an hour with an extra man.

Some context for anyone new to these two clubs. Levadiakos play in Livadia, the capital of Boeotia, roughly 130 kilometers northwest of Athens, as our guide to Livadia explains. Volos are the club of the Thessalian port city at the foot of Mount Pelion, covered in our Volos city overview, and they lost 3-2 to Aris earlier this season. Both arrived desperate. Levadiakos had one point and no goals, while Volos were in negative territory on the table, ERT Sports noted, because they carry a three-point deduction, per Gazzetta.

The old record belonged to Panachaiki, the Patras club that went its first six league games without a goal in the 2002-03 season, according to ERT Sports. Levadiakos had matched that mark before kickoff, and Saturday's draw left them alone at the top of a list no one wants to lead, Sport24 wrote. It is the kind of stat that follows a team around. Every pundit and every opposing coach will mention it until the first ball finally goes in.

The game itself started brightly enough. Volos threatened first when Rémy Cabella tried his luck from an angle in the opening minutes and Levadiakos goalkeeper Niv Eliasi pushed it behind for a corner, per ERT Sports. Konstantinos Goumas answered at the other end with a weak left-footed finish that Volos keeper Marios Siampanis gathered without much trouble, Sport24 reported. Then, around the 25th minute, the afternoon turned on one tackle.

Dimitrios Emmanouilidis stole the ball high up the pitch, and as the move developed, Volos midfielder Keidi Bare fouled Agustín Urzi. Referee Tasos Papapetrou first showed a yellow card, but after an intervention from VAR official Poulikidis he upgraded it to a straight red, Gazzetta reported. The red came in the 28th minute, per ERT Sports, leaving Volos with ten men for the remaining hour or so. On paper, that was the opening Levadiakos had been waiting for all season.

They nearly took it before halftime. In the 44th minute, Urzi hit a fierce left-footed shot from outside the box, the ball took an awkward bounce and ended up in Siampanis's net, ERT Sports wrote. The celebration did not last. The goal was disallowed because Emmanouilidis was in an offside position and judged to be affecting the play, ERT Sports and Gazzetta both reported. Of all the ways to keep a drought going, that one has to sting the most.

The second half brought the moment Levadiakos fans had circled. Mohamed Elneny came on at the break for Mohamed Ndiaye to make his debut for the club, Sport24 reported. The Egyptian midfielder spent eight years at Arsenal, won the FA Cup there in 2017, and has more than 100 caps for Egypt, per Wikipedia. He signed for Levadiakos on a free transfer on September 29 after two seasons with Al Jazira in the UAE, Wikipedia notes. It was a statement signing for a club this size.

Levadiakos pushed, but they could not find the final pass. Mahamadou Balde forced a strong save from Siampanis in the 73rd minute, and the Volos captain also kept out a well-placed effort from Octavian Popescu a few minutes later, according to Gazzetta. Gazzetta's verdict was blunt: with the extra man, Levadiakos had control of the ball but lacked the right final pass to turn that pressure into real chances, in its match report. Volos defended deep and kept the spaces tight, ERT Sports observed.

Then the debut went sideways. Elneny was booked in the 76th minute for a push on Vasilios Grosdis away from the ball, ERT Sports reported, and in the 84th minute he picked up a second yellow after contact with Maximiliano Comba's face. Two yellow cards in eight minutes, as Gazzetta put it, and the game finished ten against ten. Gazzetta named Volos center back Giannis Kargas its man of the match for leading the resistance, in the same report.

Levadiakos coach Elias Charalambous did not hide from the problem. "We did not score. We create chances in every game, but something is missing in the final third," he told NOVA, adding, "It worries me a lot. Is it pressure? Anxiety? I don't know. I'm not looking for excuses" (translated from Greek, via Gazzetta). In comments reported by ERT Sports, he stressed that the players work hard every day, but that without goals you do not win games (translated from Greek, via ERT Sports).

Volos coach Kostas Bratsos chose a different kind of statement. "We came here to win. I want to congratulate the Volos players. This is my way of protesting, and I don't want to comment further on the game," he said (translated from Greek, via Sport24). Gazzetta noted that Volos owner Achilleas Beos had publicly objected to Papapetrou's appointment for this game and asked for him to be replaced, in its post-match piece. The draw leaves Levadiakos on two points and Volos on zero, per Sport24's table.

My take: Levadiakos are not a broken team, and Charalambous has a point when he says they create chances. A disallowed goal and a handful of decent looks are not nothing. But seven games is no longer a slump, it is a pattern, and patterns get into players' heads. The Elneny red card hurts too, because he is exactly the kind of calm, experienced presence a nervous team needs on the ball. I would not panic yet, but the first goal now matters more than the first win.

Next up, Levadiakos travel to Tripoli to face Asteras, while Volos host Panathinaikos, Sport24 reported. The rest of matchday 7 includes Panaitolikos against Olympiacos and Panathinaikos against Asteras Tripolis, per ERT Sports, and the league has plenty of off-field talking points too, as our look at the Super League's vote on a TV rights study and goal-line cameras shows. For more on Greek teams and Greek athletes around the world, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. One goal. That is all Livadia is asking for.

Sources: Sport24, Gazzetta, ERT Sports, Wikipedia.

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