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Watford's Jose Holebas: 'Stadiums are really quiet here, in Greece you can't even hear your own words'
Jose Holebas represented a nation where a club owner armed with a pistol once staged a personal pitch invasion, and where women's volleyball fixtures occasionally spark riots. No wonder, then, that the Greek international appears to find life at Watford a little sedate.
The 34-year-old is expected to appear on the left side of the Hornets' defence in Sunday's FA Cup semi-final with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Should Javi Gracia's side progress Holebas can look forward to appearing in the third cup final of his career having helped Olympiakos lift the Greek equivalent in 2012 and again in 2013. Whatever happens at Wembley, though, is unlikely to remind him of those times in Athens.
"There they live football in a different way to England," he said. "The stadiums are really quiet here in England if I'm really honest. In Greece it is different; in some stadiums you can't even hear your own words, especially Olympiakos, Panathanaikos, AEK - the really big clubs over there."
How would he describe a Greek semi-final? "There the atmosphere would be on fire," he says and there is a quick check to see if he means it literally. After all, earlier this season Panathinaikos fans set fire to a cloth banner during a derby with Olympiacos that required the intervention of police officers with teargas.
"I don't know how it will be at Wembley," Holebas continues. "It is a big stadium but let's see how many people are coming for that game."
Holebas was brought up in Germany and began his career at sixth-tier Viktoria Kahl before joining 1860 Munich. A four-season spell at Olympiakos was followed by a season at Roma, who decided to sell him to Watford even though he had been keeping Ashley Cole out of the team.
Holebas confirmed that German and Italian supporters were far also more raucous than their English equivalents.
"You don't have fans here like in Germany, where you have Dortmund, the Yellow Wall. You don't have this here," he said.
"In England the atmosphere is different and the fans are really different. Here it is father and son going to the stadium."
At a time when English football is tying itself up in knots over racism in the stands, and has had to deal with the repercussions of a Birmingham fan assaulting Aston Villa's Jack Grealish during a Championship match, there is a lot to be said in favour of dads and kids cheering on their team instead of Continental-style 'ultras'.
Holebas' fearsome disciplinary record, which sees him leading the Premier League yellow card table just as he did last season, is something of a throwback to the dark days of the 1980s, when hooliganism was rife in the stands and reckless tackles were the norm on the pitch.
Watford fans can be forgiven for harking back to that particular decade however as that was the golden age of the Golden Boys under Graham Taylor, who steered them to second place in the top division in 1982 and the club's one and only FA Cup final two years later.
That ended as a 2-0 victory for Everton, which saw the Toffees awarded a goal when Andy Gray appeared to head the ball out of the hands of goalkeeper Steve Sherwood.
Sherwood's misfortunes continued in the 1987 semi-final when Taylor decided to pick barman Gary Plumley instead of him because of a finger injury. That ended in a 4-1 defeat by Tottenham and the Hornets also came off second best in FA Cup last-four clashes in 1970, 2003, 2007 and 2016.
Holebas was part of the Hornets playing pool for that last one, a 2-1 defeat by Crystal Palace, but did not feature because he had fallen out with then-manager Quique Sanchez Flores
"The cup is a good competition and is in every country," he said. "It means a lot for clubs. It is not only about winning the league because only one guy can win the league and another can win the cup. Every team goes for it, especially in Greece."