Goals galore has Greek teams hoping in Europa League
Asteras Tripolis and Atromitos went down on the road in contrasting ways on Thursday for the second qualifying round of the Europa League, but will both go through at home in the second leg with a one-goal win next Thursday.
Asteras lost 3-2 to Hibernian in Edinburgh, despite leading 2-0 after the first half.
The Tripoli team had Giorgos Kyriakopoulos score twice, on the 11th and 34th minute, imposing its game on its host that seemed unable to respond.
Yet the Scots did react after half-time, troubling the Greek defense that seemed to grow tired as the game went on.
Therefore Hibs pulled one back via Efe Ambrose on the 64th, after the ball hit the cross bar, and equalized on the 77th through captain David Gray.
Asteras was left with 10 men seven minutes from time when Triantafyllos Pasalidis received his marching orders, and Hibernian made its numerical advantage tell scoring the winner in injury time courtesy of Florian Kamberi.
Atromitos lost 4-3 to Dinamo Brest in Belarus, but that was a sweet defeat in the end given that the Peristeri team had trailed 4-0 with 20 minutes to go.
Zeljko Filipovic opened the score for Dinamo from the fifth minute with a simple tap-in from close range. Seven minutes on Atromitos conceded a penalty for a handball by Madson and Pavel Savitski made it 2-0 for Dinamo.
Savitski added the third goal on the 61st scoring unmarked just outside the six-yard box as the Atromitos defense was all over the place. He then completed his hat trick 20 minutes from the end with a left-foot shot from the edge of the penalty area.
Giorgos Manoussos gave some hope to the Peristeri team stealing the ball inside the box to slot it home from the right side on the 74th minute. Oleg Veretilo then conceded an own goal 10 minutes from time under pressure by Armin Mujakic for 4-2.
With two minutes left on the clock Efthymis Koulouris made it 4-3 with a long-distance shot beating the keeper who had poor visibility.
