Home victories for AEK and PAOK in soccer
AEK stretched its lead on top of the Super League thanks to a 2-1 home win over PAS Giannina on December 10, while PAOK scored a much-needed 3-1 victory over Atromitos at home.
With the Olympic Stadium unusually full of AEK fans, who felt their team is now a genuine title contender, the Athens club managed to overcome the fact it was missing up to nine top-choice players.
It led after 15 minutes through Jose Carlos and was lucky to double its lead seven minutes into the second half via an own goal by PAS?s Tasos Pantos.
In its first match with coach Angelos Anastasiadis on its bench, PAS cut the deficit in half with a tap-in from close range by Ilias Kotsios, but this was not enough for the visitors to get anything out of this game.
AEK now has 28 points from 13 games to go four points ahead of Olympiakos, who has played 11 games, and five ahead of Panathinaikos, who has three games in hand on AEK.
PAOK returned to victories with an emphatic performance against Atromitos, whom it approached to just one point at the table. Atromitos, in fourth, has got a game in hand, though.
The Thessaloniki giant had Lino, Adelino Vieirinha and Stefanos Athanasiadis to thank for their goals, while Brito scored for Atromitos.
In the day?s other game Levadiakos snatched a point at Xanthi putting an end to the series of four consecutive victories by the Thrace side.
Stelios Vassiliou gave the lead to Levadiakos but Xanthi equalized courtesy of Marko Markovski for a 1-1 final score. Xanthi has therefore dropped to sixth, one point behind PAOK.
