First derby win for Panathinaikos in two years

After a barren spell of 13 consecutive Super League derbies without a win, Panathinaikos defeated AEK in dramatic circumstances on Sunday to snap their miserable streak.

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Everyone connected with Panathinaikos won’t forget Sunday in a hurry. Having conceded two goals in the first half, the Prasini were staring defeat against AEK in the face, but they embarked on a memorable comeback to eventually emerge victorious by a score of 3-2. Federico Macheda, Juan Jose Perea and Dimitris Kolovetsios all scored for Panathinaikos as AEK completely fell apart in the concluding 21 minutes.

This was the first time since 2017 when Panathinaikos won a Super League derby against either AEK, Olympiacos or PAOK. Before Sunday, their last derby triumph was a 1-0 victory over Olympiacos at the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium on October 28, 2017. Between that win against Olympiacos and Sunday’s victory over AEK, Panathinaikos had not won in 13 successive derbies:

Panathinaikos - AEK - 1-1

PAOK - Panathinaikos - 4-0

Olympiacos - Panathinaikos - 1-1

AEK - Panathinaikos - 3-0

Panathinaikos - PAOK - 0-3

PAOK - Panathinaikos - 2-0

Panathinaikos - AEK - 0-0

Olympiacos - Panathinaikos - 1-1

Panathinaikos - PAOK - 0-2

AEK - Panathinaikos - 0-0

Panathinaikos - Olympiacos - 0-3 (Match abandoned at 0-1)

Panathinaikos - Olympiacos - 1-1

PAOK - Panathinaikos - 2-2

AEK, on the other hand, endured yet another miserable derby. The last time when AEK defeated either Olympiacos, Panathinaikos or PAOK was on April 1, 2018 as the Enosis beat the Prasini 3-0 at the Olympic Stadium in their championship winning campaign. AEK are without a derby victory in 600 days.

The Kitrinomavri lack any kind of confidence or belief in the key matches, something which was evident on Sunday evening as they caved in to Panathinaikos’ powerful late charge. Following the completion of the game, AEK supporters came to the hotel to express their fury at the performance, while Croatian forward Marko Livaja received a wave of criticism for his seemingly poor attitude on the pitch. AEK are nine points behind Super League leaders Olympiacos.

Interestingly, the last league game which AEK lost after initially leading 2-0 was in 2004, as PAOK came back to win 3-2 following two goals from Nikos Liberopoulos. For their part, Panathinaikos recovered from a two-goal deficit to beat AEK on September 29, 1963.

by Shaun Nicolaides

Image Source: sportfm.gr

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