AEK Larnaca held to draw, Apollon fall in Germany

UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE - MATCHDAY 3

AEK Larnaca will rue being held to a 1:1 draw at home to Ludogorets as Apollon took a 2:0 loss in Frankfurt.

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AEK Larnaca hosted Bulgarian side Ludogorets FC at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia for the sake of a greater capacity than their usual home, the Giorgos Karapatakis AEK Arena in Larnaca. Things could not have started worse for AEK, as a simple through ball caught their entire defense flat-footed and somehow found Jody Lukoki by himself having all day to place a strike past Tono Ramirez to give the visitors the lead in just the 7th minute. Lightning almost struck twice as Cosmin Moti was left unmarked on a corner by the AEK defense, but the header rang off the post and stayed out. Trying to get something going, Apostolos Giannou sent in a cross for Ivan Trickovski. Trickovski collided with the Ludogorets keeper Renan. It was ruled that Renan made no attempt to play the ball and a penalty was awarded. Jorge Larena stepped up to take the penalty, and sent Renan the wrong way as he hit the target to level the score at 1:1. Tete had a go before the half, but Renan parried the shot aside and the halftime score was 1:1.

AEK turned up the pressure in the second half. Renan came out of his box to clear the ball away from Trickovski, but the ball came straight to Igor Silva, who immediately sent the ball on goal from distance. Renan was unable to get back into the box in time, but made the save with his head. That would be their best chance and they never broke the deadlock. AEK take a disappointing 1:1 draw. They earned their first point of the competition, but are a distant 3rd in their group, 5 points adrift of Bayer Leverkusen, and 8 points off leaders FC Zurich.

Meanwhile in Frankfurt, Apollon visited Eintracht Frankfurt at the Waldstadion. Like their compatriots, they hit trouble early. A flick by Sebastian Haller sent Filip Kostic in on goal. The shot was a weak and low one, straight at Bruno Vale, but inexplicably as Vale went down to scoop up the ball up, it went through both his arms and his legs and snuck into the net behind him. It was a cheap goal for Kostic, and a grave error by Vale in the 13th minute. It only got worse in the 32nd minute as Haller redirected a pass from Evan N’Dicka past Vale to make it 2:0, which represented the halftime score.

In the second half, the match stabilized a bit, but Eintracht had a chance to tack on another goal as Ante Rebic intercepted a pass and found Haller open, but this time Vale was able to make a save. Rebic nearly earned a penalty in the 65th minute, but the referee changed his mind at the last second and did not give the penalty. In the 80th minute, Apollon were finally able to breach the Eintracht box. Emilio Zelaya took a shot from a bad angle that Frederik Ronnow was able to make the save on, but the ball remained loose for Fotis Papoulis who cranked the rebound off the crossbar, and it stayed in play again for Zelaya to follow up the play he started, only to see Marco Russ to slide out and block the shot from crossing the line with Ronnow beaten. Other than that, this was a dominated by Eintracht Frankfurt, and they win it 2:0. Apollon remain 3rd in the group with just one point. They are 8 points behind Eintracht and 5 points behind Lazio.

By Andrew Mantzas

Image Source: SportFM.cy

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