Aston Villa fans in Athens brace themselves ahead of Europa Conference League semi-final

Aston Villa players and staff during a training session before the match today Credit: PA Images

Aston Villa fans are arriving in Athens ahead of their Europa Conference League semi-final against Olympiacos.With the team losing 4-2 from the first leg it is likely to be the last journey on what has been a remarkable European tour. This trip will take the total distance travelled by Villans in the competition this season to over 12,000 miles - easily enough to get to Australia.To make all these matches from Poland to Bosnia some fans have taken extreme measures.

Sam Sheers, a homeless officer at Solihull Council, has taken on extra work to do it.She said: "Every six weeks I basically work 24 hours a day just to be able to afford to pay for this.

I've also bought extra annual leave from work because we don't just come out for two days, we have a little holiday while we're out here"."Was it worth it? She replies, "100 percent."For some though, the football has come to them. Villa fan Martin Garnham runs the Athens Sports Bar.

He said: "It was kind of a dream come true to get all the Villa fans here. We run the Greek Lions Villa Supporters Club. So we've normally got about five or six fans at the bar watching the game. But now we're going to have a bar that's actually full of fans, which is fantastic."One unexpected benefit of Villa qualifying for Europe is how it has turned so many strangers into friends.

One Villa fan who travels alone tells me, "You always meet everyone. It's just a massive community and it's genuinely like going on holiday with your mates, people you've never met before, and you come away with lasting friendships."

Aston Villa's team-mates during a training session at Bodymoor Heath Training Centre in Birmingham Credit: PA images

Villa have an allocation of 1,600 for tonight's match, a thousand fewer than they had at Lille in the last round.They will struggle to be heard in an intense atmosphere with Olympiacos trying to reach their first ever European final.In the stadium press room MegaTV journalist Nikos Kotsis says: "I can tell you that if we had two Maracanas, so probably 300,000 people, they would be here tomorrow [if they could]."The fans are really, really, really enthusiastic about this. They are in the mood to help the team. This is, you know, once in a lifetime."No team has come back from such a position in the Conference League and there are very few examples in other European competitions too.There is a lot of graffiti on the outside of the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium including some depicting the Grim Reaper.A dream is about to end for one of these teams, can Villa defy the odds and avoid it being them one last time?

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