When Lady Luck Turns Her Back on You

AGONAsport’s Olympiacos contributor, Theo Bouras, looks back at the disappointing UEFA Europa League defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Last 16 of the competition.

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When you get to this stage of the competition, talent and hard work aren’t the only factors which you need to rely on. In the two Round of 16 matches with Wolves, Olympiacos ran into a string of bad luck:

·         In the first game, Olympiacos centre-back Ruben Semedo mistimed a tackle and was given a red card;

·         Even though the Erythrolefki were down to 10 men, they took the lead in the 54th minute. The Wolves tied the game up after a clumsy foul committed by Andreas Bouchalakis. Pedro Neto’s execution was nothing to write home about, but the ball took a wicked deflection off of Bouchalakis - who was in the wall - and fooled goalkeeper Jose Sa to give the English side a precious away goal;

 ·         Last Saturday, Sa injured his hand and was unavailable for the return leg at Molineux Stadium. A massive loss Olympiacos who lost their rock in goal;

·         The 45-time Greek champions looked rusty in the first 15 minutes of the game. A 17-day hiatus from any official match competition proved to be an issue. Of course, we all know the mind games that EPO have been playing with the Greek Cup Final – they had a hand in costing their only representative a European victory;

·         On the goal scored by Wolves, Ousseynou Ba hesitated when making a pass back to goalkeeper Bobby Allain. The French goalkeeper didn’t immediately clear the ball, with Daniel Podence quickly robbing him of possession. The Portuguese speedster was looking away from goal, but Allain still committed a needless penalty. A total of three catastrophic errors from the Olympiacos players;

·         Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper, Rui Patricio, was brilliant. His stop on Kostas Tsimikas’s blast in the first half and his game-saving dive on Ahmed Hassan’s header in the second half prevented Olympiacos from qualifying;

·         Polish referee, Szymon Marciniak, was awful. He was quick to point to the penalty spot on the Podense challenge but didn’t even bothering going to look at the Video Assistant Referee system when Youssef El-Arabi was pushed on an attempted header in the 55th minute;

·         Mady Camara’s goal was called back in the 28th minute via the VAR. El Arabi was called offside on a play even Wolves boss, Nuno Espirito Santos, would have probably considered too close to call.

It’s easy to blame the referee (and in this case, it is certainly justifiable), however, Olympiacos didn’t resemble the team we had been accustomed to this season. A certain nervousness surrounded the team in the onset of the game and it cost them the qualification. The Legend was the much better team after the 20th minute mark and could have gone through.

Looking ahead, the squad will have a small break before their obligations for the 2020-21 season begin. There are a flurry of transfer rumours in Piraeus and one thing is for sure, this team will look very different the next time they hit the pitch.

Unfortunately, this 2019-20 season of Olympiacos has ended. This edition will always be remembered as the team that brought back a Greek championship, had a great run in Europe and has a bright look for the future. Bring on 2020-21!

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