AEKara, let’s conquer Karaiskaki…

This past Monday AEK took on Irakli at the OAKA, looking for our third straight win of the season. Since Panathinaiko and Olympiaco dropped points this week, with a win we would go 2 points clear in first place with the derby soon approaching us.

We had two huge absences in Hugo Almedia and our captain Petros Mantalos who missed out due to injury. The team looked pretty slow and sluggish nothing like our last match against Veria. There was not really a good amount of tempo in our play as we struggled to score.

Pekart started as the lone striker, and boy was he bad, a horrible first half from him. Papito who was trying to make some things happen came close in the 9th minute with a header that sailed over the bar. We weren’t really creating much, we were lacking the final ball in the final third really. In the 34th minute Vargas, who started the game in the place of our captain has his goal bound shot blocked by an Irakli defender. Then, in the 38th minute we had a bit of a scare when Anesti made a hash of things mis-kicking a ball high into the air in his own penalty area after a back pass. Luckily he would recover and fall safely on the ball to preserve the 0-0 scoreline.

We played a very poor first half, we were looking for a spark in the second. We would see the debut of Christodoulopoulo in the second half as he came on as a sub alongside Platella looking to energize and ignite the team. Rightfully we made two changes at half time taking off the below par Pekart again looking for something to get us up and going. Irakli would come close in the 48th minute after a Leozinho free kick went wide. You can clearly see that Papito was trying to make thing happen dropping deep getting the ball and trying to orchestrate a dangerous attack. In the 60th minute he had a curling effort go just wide after he popped up on the top of the box and tried one with his right foot. After every minute that went on Irakli would drop deeper and deeper trying to frustrate us.

We would have a couple of shouts for an Irakli player to be sent off, especially in the 65th minute where there was a possible second bookable offense. A couple minutes after that Didac found himself in a very dangerous area on the left had side, but he played a very poor ball that sailed well long of any attacking targets that we had in the area. Aravidi would come on for Simoes, an attack minded sub still looking for the breakthrough. Irakli saw the opportunity to steal an away point and continued playing with 10 men behind the ball making it all the harder for us to create something appealing. We would have a couple more have chances but again nothing really dangerous to Wanderson’s goal. The match would end 0-0.

What a disappointing result this is for us. With the tie we find ourselves in 1st with Panathinaiko, but those 2 points that we left on the table are crucial. These are the type games that we have to win especially before a big derby. Almedia and Mantalo were clearly missed, hopefully that can get fit for the derby on Sunday vs Olympiaco. Olympiaco is coming off another loss after a 1-0 defeat to Apoel at home in a Europa league group stage game yesterday. Nonetheless we have to focus on ourselves and play some good quick football if we want any chance to win. We need a certain quick tempo to our play, nothing is going to work with slow side to side passing especially against them. We need a much better performance. If we play well then we can cause them many many problems I have no doubt about it, let’s replicate out our cup triumph boys and beat this joke of a team!

George Angelidis, New York