Professional victories bring titles

AGONAsport’s Olympiacos contributor, Theo Bouras, talks about the Reds’ professional win over their arch-rivals Panathinaikos on Sunday. Read Theo’s blog at AGONAsport.

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If there is one word to characterize Olympiacos’ win over their arch-rivals, Panathinaikos, this past Sunday, it is professional. 

Amidst a two week Christmas hiatus, a potential referee strike, and an empty Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium, the setting was far from ideal. The Erythrolefki camp had been vocal about their displeasure of this season’s officiating, and things only got worse after last matchday’s refereeing butchering in Volos. 

This week, it was Finnish referee Mateus Gestranius who would have all eyes set on him with Tasos Sidiropoulos on the VAR. Sidiropoulos’ feud with Olympiacos is well documented, and the fact that the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO) had appointed him as the VAR official proves once again their intent to irk and annoy the Olympiacos administration. 

Truth be told, the Legend was far from being good in the first half this past Sunday. Pedro Martins instructed his team to give their opponents space while taking advantage of the counter-attack. Panathinaikos, to their credit, brought the game to Olympiacos but were unable to mount any offence in this one. Aside from a broken play that led to a semi-breakaway for Mattias Johansson, which was stopped by Jose Sa, and a Dimitris Kourbelis shot outside the penalty box, which went wide but was tracked by Sa, Panathinaikos did not threaten in attack. 

In the second half, Olympiacos took the game to the Prasini and did not allow the Greens to have any decent chances. The returning Lazaros Christodoulopoulos should have put the Piraeus side up by one, but his chance went agonizingly high. Finally, it was Mathieu Valbuena who assisted a beautiful Youssef El Arabi strike that gave the Legend the three points. 

Valbuena has been a playmaking machine for the team, but the Reds will also be looking forward to getting their captain and best playmaker back, Kostas Fortounis. El Arabi has been quite the poacher in front of the net. The Moroccan striker has 14 goals in all competitions this season and continues to have excellent contact with the back of the net. 

As far as the few murmurs about the officiating go, both “penalty spots” were most certainly not infractions. On the first play, Mady Camara clears the ball and then makes contact with the Green player. On the Oyssenou Ba-Federico Macheda play, the players step on each other, and then the Italian falls to the ground. If instances like these were called penalties, we would have a dozen penalty kicks per game. Sidiropoulos, to his credit, did the best he could to send the Finnish referee to the VAR but was rejected twice. 

Olympiacos can look forward to key returns of Kostas Fortounis and Guilherme in the short term. The team has a congested fixture schedule, so Martins will need to use his deep bench. 

The 44-time Greek champions firmly believe they have the best team in Greece and know that they now decide their own fate in the Super League. Second place PAOK have been underwhelming this year, especially in derby games where they have four draws and one loss in five games. 

Martins needs to keep the team focused as they haven’t even played 50% of their games yet. If the team is to conquer the Super League once again, they know they will have to do it with a stacked deck. They can’t afford to have “off nights,” but on nights like this past Sunday where they were simply average, championship teams need to find a way to win - and win they did.

by Theo Bouras

Image Source: to10.gr

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