It’s not very often that Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis gets to watch his Greek team in action in England, but that was the case on Thursday night.

Olympiacos made the journey to the Midlands to take on Aston Villa in the first leg of the Europa Conference League semi-final at Villa Park. Villa went into the game as favourites, but it was Olympiacos who took the advantage into next week’s second leg.

Goals from Ayoub El Kaabi put the Greek side 2-0 up in the first half, although Ollie Watkins did half the deficit just before half time. Villa thought that thy had completed a comeback in the second half when Moussa Diaby squeezed the ball in from a tight angle.

But Olympiacos weren’t done there. El Kaabi completed his hat trick from the penalty spot in the 56th minute before Antiago Hezze increased the side’s advantage. To make things worse for Villa, Douglas Luiz put a second half penalty wide.

The result means that Villa will now have to score three goals away from home without reply if they wish to make it to the final of the competition without the need for another penalty shootout. The result for Olympiacos was much to the delight of the travelling fans.

And after the full-time whistle Marinakis joined in with their celebrations. In a clip captured by TNT Sports, the Forest owner went right up to the travelling fans in the away end giving high fives and hugs before making his way back across the pitch.

Having the same owner means that there is a relationship between Forest and Olympiacos. Full-back Omar Richards is on loan from the Reds and came on as a second-half substitute at Villa Park , former Forest man Joao Carvalho was also an unused substitute for the game, having joined the club from the City Ground in 2022.

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