Olympiakos can’t be restrained
Dimitris Mavrogennidis and Lambros Houtos each scored two goals yesterday as defending champion Olympiakos crushed Akratitos 7-0 to take the lead in the Greek first division. It was Olympiakos’s second straight victory in the championship which kicked off a week ago. The Piraeus squad, winner of the last seven league titles, has six points from two games. It shares the top slot with archrival Panathinaikos, which downed OFI 3-1 in Crete with two goals from Dimitris Papadopoulos and AEK, which defeated Ionikos 3-0 late last night. In other results yesterday, it was: PAOK 2, Aegaleo 0; Aris 3, Proodeftiki 0, and Xanthi 0, Panionios 0. On Saturday, Paniliakos beat Halkidona 3-1 and Kallithea played to a 1-1 draw against Iraklis. Akratitos’s keeper Angelos Georgiou handicapped his team in the 24th minute when he received the red card for flooring Houtos in his area. Yugoslav midfielder Predrag Djordjevic converted the penalty to give his teammates the first of seven goals. Seconds before the end of the first half, Mavrogennidis made the score 2-0 and five minutes into the second half increased the lead to 3-0. With two goals in three minutes, Houtos made it 5-0. Alecos Tatsis stretched it to 6-0 in the 77th minute and Pandelis Kaffes closed the easy victory 10 minutes before the end. Akratitos, which fielded a defense-minded squad, never threatened Olympiakos keeper Fanis Kateryiannakis. The game was played in the southern Greek town of Pirgos as punishment meted out to Olympiakos for fan violence in another league match last season. In perhaps its best performance this season in both the league and the Greek Cup, Panathinaikos beat OFI 3-1. Cypriot striker Michalis Constantinou put Panathinaikos ahead with his first goal of the season in the 10th minute. But six minutes later, Ilias Kotsios silenced more than 2,000 Panathinaikos supporters when he leveled with a close-range shot. In the 58th minute, Constantinou set up Papadopoulos for a 2-1 Panathinaikos lead. Papadopoulos then sealed victory with his second goal in the 69th. (AP)
