Panathinaikos looks likely to keep Victor Munoz as coach

Athens club moving to extend Spaniard’s contract until summer of 2008

Victor Munoz, pictured during last weekend’s 1-0 away win against archrival Olympiakos, looks set to stay at Panathinaikos. Both the coach and club are interested in a deal extension.

Encouraged by the Panathinaikos soccer team’s solid form of late, highlighted by last weekend’s away win against archrival Olympiakos, as well as an overall feeling of optimism at the club, the Athens team’s administration appears set to extend coach Victor Munoz’s contract until the summer of 2008.

The Spaniard, who arrived at Panathinaikos several rounds into this season to replace Swede Hans Backe after a shaky start by the team, would also like to carry on, reports assert.

Munoz, a former Spanish international with 59 caps who went on to coach several teams in Spain, the most recent being Real Zaragoza, had agreed to a clause enabling his contract’s extension, when he joined the Athens club last October.

Lying a distant second in the Super League, eight points behind breakaway leader Olympiakos with six rounds of play remaining, Panathinaikos stands little, if any, chance of winning the title. The top priority, at this stage, is second place and a berth in next season’s pre-group Champions League qualifiers. It is a two-horse race. Third-placed AEK is two points behind, well ahead of OFI, PAOK and Aris, all with 16 points less.

Though Panathinaikos’s title hopes this season have waned, Munoz has injected purpose and morale into the team that adds up to promise for the future.

To his credit, he has not hesitated to work hard along the way. In selecting young Sotiris Ninis, not yet 17, for his senior-level debut just weeks ago, the Spaniard made a radical move, if local ways in soccer are a measure. Ninis took full advantage of the opportunity with fine performances, and a couple of impressive goals, too.

The situation is less rosy at Thessaloniki club PAOK. Following the resignation of two board members, Giorgos Koudas and Koulis Apostolidis, both star players at PAOK during their heyday, a third official, Aristotelis Bitsianis, resigned yesterday. Reports said the club’s current leadership was likely to fall within the next few days.