The team with two Japanese players in the Greek League, Milon, is making great strides: setter Ryu Yamamoto and libero Wataru Taniguchi.
Milon, who finished third in the regular season, is facing second-placed Olympiacos in the playoff semi-finals. The playoffs are played in a home and away format with the top teams competing, and the first team to win three games will advance to the finals.
Olympiacos finished second in the regular season, but won all three domestic cup competitions this season, and although they lost to Poland's number one Jastrzebski in the Champions League and finished in the quarterfinals, they won one match there as well. This means they are the top favorite to win this league as well. Their members include Serbian national team player OP Atanaszevic, Slovenian national team player MB Pajenc, and former Italian national team player S. Travica, all of whom are older but have the skills and experience to play for them.
Milon, on the other hand, is a young team with few players with extensive experience at top clubs or the national team, with the only player who came close being OP Kyle Russell (USA), but he was poached by a Korean league team as a replacement for an injured player before the playoffs.
Before the playoffs, Milon had not beaten Olympiacos this season, and Olympiacos won the first leg of the semi-finals at home in straight sets, 3-0.
However, in the second match held at Miron's home ground, Miron overwhelmed Olympiacos with their high success rate of attacks and serves, and won 3-0. The MVP was setter Ryu Yamamoto, who brought out a high success rate of team attacks.
However, Olympiacos won the third match 3-0. I watched the fourth match of the semi-finals at Miron's home stadium, with no other options.
The match started at 20:30 on Saturday, so I arrived at the venue about an hour before. The gymnasium was about 30 minutes by tram from the center of Athens, so it was easily accessible. It was still faintly light outside.

The ceiling of Milon's gymnasium is very low (lol). The ceiling curves down towards the center, so it is lower than it looks from the outside. I think gymnasiums in Japanese public elementary schools are probably higher. One side is lower because of the plumbing pipes. But I later learned that this is a great home advantage.
There are few seats. Wikipedia says there are 1300 seats, but the seats on the courtside benches were reserved for the media and officials, so there were only about 700 to 800 seats available. However, the seats were mostly filled up just before the start of the match. By the way, the tickets were unreserved and cost 10 euros (about 1600 yen). There were also a few Japanese customers who seemed to be local residents.
Meanwhile, the players entered the stadium and started warming up. Just because there were two Japanese players, they were not particularly clingy, and each team member was warming up while communicating with their teammates. Well, that's what you'd expect. It's not the first time for either of them to play overseas, and it's already the final edition of the season.
Also, the sound of the ball hitting the ground echoed well in this gymnasium, probably due to its size and structure. There was no cheering squad or DJ, but the spontaneous cheering (and booing) by the spectators made the venue quite lively. (I laughed when Milon staff handed out booing trumpets to the spectators during the game.)
And so the game began. S Yamamoto and L Taniguchi both started.

In the first set, Miron took a 9-6 lead thanks to spikes from OP Nanopoulos and blocks from MB Rinaldos. From there, Olympiacos made three consecutive breaks thanks to serves and spikes from OP Atanasievich, turning the game around to 10-11. However, Miron quickly turned the game around again with a block from OH Kotsakis at 14-13, and Olympiacos made further mistakes to extend the lead to 20-16. Miron continued to score with points from OP Nanopoulos and others, and took the set 25-20.
In the second set, both teams broke the ball early on, but the score remained close at 13-13. From there, Olympiacos took a 14-17 lead with OH Perin's spikes, but OP Nanopoulos' attack and consecutive service aces (when the opponent's pass hit the low ceiling) gave Milon a 20-18 lead. However, OP Atanasijevich's service ace and spikes later, Olympiacos took the lead again at 22-23. However, just after a side-out tied the score at 23-23, S Yamamoto scored two consecutive aces, giving Milon a 25-23 lead in this set.
In the third set, OP Nanopoulos' spikes and aces gave Milon a 5-0 lead. After that, MB Rinaldos' consecutive blocks widened the gap to 9-1, a maximum of 8 points. From there, Olympiacos narrowed the gap to 10-5 and 14-13 with attacks and blocks from OH Perin, and then turned the game around to 17-18 with a service ace from OH Perin. However, in the final stages, OP Nanopoulos again scored two consecutive aces, and Milon extended the lead to 23-20 again, and finally, OH Kotsakis' block was successful, and Milon won the set 25-21, winning the match 3-0.
