Olympiakos maintains its two-point lead
Christos Patsadzoglou netted a goal and Lambros Houtos added another as Olympiakos defeated Aegaleo 2-0 yesterday, keeping a 14-year unbroken record of beating the Athens suburban club. With its victory – the seventh of the season – the Piraeus squad remained at the top of Greece’s first division soccer league with 26 points from 12 games. PAOK trounced lowly Panachaiki 4-0, with two goals each from Nikos Froussos and Yiannakis Okkas, to retain second place with 24 points, one ahead of Panathinaikos. The Athens club beat Kallithea 1-0 with a goal scored in the third minute of second-half injury time by 38-year-old veteran Polish striker Krzystof Warzycha. In other action yesterday: Akratitos 0, Panionios 3; Ioannina 0, OFI 0; Xanthi 1, Iraklis 0. On Saturday, Proodeftiki beat Aris 3-1. Yesterday’s games were the last played in 2002. The league resumes with the 13th round on January 5. Olympiakos faced Aegaleo on a muddy field that hampered play. Aegaleo squandered a chance in the eighth minute when a powerful shot by Anastassis Agritis skimmed the Olympiakos post. The Piraeus club almost went ahead in the 23rd minute but keeper Mahamadou Sidibe made a fingertip save to a header by Stelios Yiannacopoulos. Six minutes before the end of the first period, Patsadzoglou scored his third goal of the season, heading the ball into Sidibe’s upper left corner. In the 51st, Aegaleo’s Agritis gained the ball after a goal-mouth melee but his slow shot was easily stopped by goalie Dimitris Eleftheropoulos. Olympiakos was awarded a penalty in the 78th minute but Predrag Djordjevic’s shot hit the woodwork. Four minutes later, Sidibe slipped in the mud and failed to stop a shot from Lambros Houtos who made the final 2-0. PAOK overwhelmed last-placed Panachaiki. The Thessaloniki squad controlled play throughout, not once allowing the Patras players to threaten goalie Kyriakos Tohouroglou. Froussos put PAOK ahead with a penalty in the 11th minute and Cypriot striker Okkas added other in the 34th. Okkas struck again in the 62nd minute, dribbling past two defenders to stretch the score to 3-0. And Froussos sealed the visitors’ fate, scoring four minutes before the final whistle. Playing at home, Panathinaikos besieged the Kallithea area from the start, launching successive attacks. But its players could not break through Kallithea’s well-organized defense. Warzycha, one of three other strikers sent in by Coach Sergio Markarian in the second half, exploited a mistake by goalkeeper Foto Strakosha to grab the injury-time winner. (AP)
