When a team can’t take advantage of the chances it creates, then it is hard to believe in achieving a positive result. This is one of the laws in football. A law which was very correctly applied in this derby against Olympiakos Piraeus, held at Karaiskakis stadium. Panathinaikos, let the whole first period to pass without a good performance. In the second half, though, the Greens dominated the match but couldn’t find a way to transform all the nice opportunities created by team into goals. Despite the fact that the Shamrock didn´t deserve to leave this match defeated, it still stays away from a positive result, for one more match day, bringing itself in a more difficult position, in view of an even harder period to come.
The match had two different faces. In the first half Panathinaikos was indolent. Playing a bad passing game the team couldn’t approach the rival box, but in very few cases. From their side, Olympiacos’ footballers took advantage of those indolent moments the defense of their rivals had and scored a goal with Fortunis, in the 21st minute, which was the victorious one for the team of Piraeus.
In the second half, Lazlo Boloni’s players presented a totally different image. They controlled the rhythm of the match completely and created at least three clear chances to even the score. Nevertheless, under these circumstances, either because of goalie Sá or due to the lack of the “Greens” to score, the result 1-0 in favor of Olympiacos remained till the end of the duel.
It is important to mention that the Portuguese referee of the match in collaboration with the VAR allowed Olympiacos to finish the game with all its eleven players in spite of the aggressive marking of Bouchalakis over Villafañes. The midfielder of the hosting team got only a yellow card instead of a red one, which his action really deserved. This way Panathinaikos, after 9 match days for the championship, has achieved only two victories and now the team has to try to overcome in order to get at least the minimum of its targets for the season.
Olympiacos: Sá, Drager, Rafinha, Semedo, Cisse, M’Vila, Bouchalakis, Camara (78′ Pepe), Μasouras (86′ Lovera), Randjelovic (66′ Soudani), Fortunis (86′ Αndroutsos).
Panathinaikos: Dioudis, Zagaritis, Sanchez, Schenkeveld (46’ Αlexandropoulos), Pougouras, Κourbelis, Μauricio, Chatziyiovannis (63′ Villafañez), Juankar (46’ Xavier, 90′ Molo), Μacheda, Carlitos.
