Olympiakos stumbles away
Striker Tassos Agritis exploited a late defensive error yesterday to help Aegaleo salvage a 2-2 draw against league-leading Olympiakos, enabling Panathinaikos to pull within a point of the Greek first-division front runners. Michalis Constantinou and Markus Muench scored one goal each as Panathinaikos won 2-0 at Halkidona. The results left Olympiakos atop the 16-team standings with 27 points, just ahead of Panathinaikos. AEK was held to a 1-1 draw at home by OFI and dropped two points behind Panathinaikos. Nigerian striker Patrick Ogynsoto scored three to lead Ergotelis to trounce a 10-man Apollon Kalamarias 4-1 on Crete yesterday. The three goals gave Ogynsoto the league lead with eight, but could not lift his club off the bottom of the standings with eight points. In other games yesterday, it was: Iraklis 1, Xanthi 1; PAOK 3, Ionikos 0, and Panionios 1, Kallithea 1. Playing on a waterlogged pitch, Aegaleo missed a first-minute chance when Giorgos Barkoglou headed Agritis’s cross just wide. But Olympiakos soon settled, creating its first chance in the eighth minute and leading 2-0 by the 57th on a pair of goals by Rivaldo. The Brazilian forward pounced on a loose ball in the 37th minute when a header by Giorgos Anatolakis was deflected off Aegaleo defender Manolis Psomas and fell at his feet. He doubled the advantage in the 57th by heading home a cross from Djordjevic for his sixth goal of the season. Aegaleo pulled within a goal on a penalty kick by Giorgos Barkoglou in the 67th minute. After Olympiakos nearly restored its two-goal lead in the 79th when Stelios Venetidis’s shot hit the post, Agritis capitalized on a defensive miscue in the 83rd to slot the ball past oncoming Olympiakos international goalkeeper Antonis Nikopolidis for the equalizer. At Halkidona, Dimitris Geladaris hit the post in the 15th minute with a 25-meter shot, but Panathinaikos went ahead seven minutes later with a powerful shot by Cyprus striker Constantinou from inside the box. Halkidona had another chance in the 33rd but Christos Iliopoulos’s header from inside the 6-yard box was kept out by a diving save. After another Halkidona shot hit the post, Panathinaikos added to its lead on a penalty by Markus Muench in the 52nd after Rudolf Skacel drew the foul. (AP)
