Snowy Debacle in Tripoli

Just this Saturday we took on Asteras Tripolis in a tricky snowy away match in Tripoli.

The pitch was full of snow, very tricky conditions to say the least. Morais sent out a team featuring the same formation as last week’s match against Panatoliko. We started out pretty slow and had trouble getting off the blocks. The first chance of the game came in the 4th minute when an Astera attempt went harmlessly wide of Barkas’ net. In the 20th minute Barkas made a comfortable save after a shot from distance. Asteras was pressing us early on, in the 25th minute Barkas needed two attempts to collect the ball off a set piece.

Our first clear cut attempt came in the 34th minute after Pekart skied an attempt over the bar. Two minutes after that Pekart would open the scoring after beating Donaroumma to the ball after a nice clipped in cross by Lazaros. In the 43rd minute we luckily defended a dangerous set piece. 1-0 at the half, not bad playing on this very difficult pitch.

The second half started out on fire. In the 49th minute after some sloppy defending Stanisavljevic made 1-1. We weren’t focused enough and conceded at a very wrong time. In the 54th minute Asteras almost made it 2-1 after Fernandez broke free and tried to lob the oncoming Barakas to only strike the top of the woodwork. Just a minute after this Donaroumma denied Mantalo with a clever leg save after a nice set up by Pekart. In the 60th minute Mantalo had another effort well saved this time off a free kick.

It was end to end stuff at this point just past the hour mark. In the 64th minute Barkas made a De Gea like save picking one out of the top corner, a great athletic save. However just two minutes after Igor made 2-1 after some sloppy defending yet again. It was kind of looking like it at that point. Our response was strong, in the 68th minute Pekart would make it 2-2 with a calm finish after being slipped in wonderfully by Johanson.

Things got very tricky in the 72nd minute when Vranjes received his second yellow. A debut red card for the Bosnian. In the 75th minute Bakasetas who came in as a sub had his freekick sail over the bar. Asteras grabbed the lead when Tsoukalas tapped in a dangerous cross from the right. With 10 men at this point things were looking very gloomy for us. In the 87th minute Astera would score their 4th but it was rightfully called back for offside. The match would end 3-2, yet another disappointing result for Enosi.
This is not AEK, we need to be finding a way to win these type of games if we want any chance to find ourselves in Europe next year. We need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we have to do to snap out of this bad run of form that we find ourselves in.
Our next match is on Tuesday away at Levadiakos for the first leg of the Round of 16 for the cup. Maybe a good cup run can spark us, hopefully so. Lets get a win on Tuesday and start heading in the right direction again.

George Angelidis – New York