Champions APOEL roll on

APOEL Coach Ivan Jovanovic was pleased with the newly-crowned champions after their  2-1 victory over Anorthosis in the third round of the national championship playoffs at the Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium in Larnaca over the weekend.

“We played well as we did not have in the back of our minds that the season is finished,” he said. “The idea was to try and hit them on the counter-attack and we managed to execute the game plan perfectly,” he added.

“Anorthosis created some good opportunities in the second half but we defended well and deservedly won,” Jovanovic concluded.

Ivan Trickovski continued his great from this season as he scored both goals for APOEL to take his tally to 11 goals for the season.

He opened the scoring after only ten minutes when he capitalised on slack play by Anorthosis defenders before scoring with his weaker left foot past the opposing keeper.

Trickovski hit his second goal of the game in the 34th minute when he headed the ball home following a good cross from the left flank by Nektarios Alexandrou.

After sacking coach Dusan Bajevic last week, Omonia thrashed AEK Larnaca 3-0 at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia.

The 62-year-old Bosnian Serb, whose two-decade career in Greece earned him eight championships, took over Omonia in October amid high hopes that he would turn the club’s fortunes around following a bad run under Takis Lemonis. But it was not to be this season, with the second-placed Greens languishing 15 points behind the new champions

Constantinos Makrides scored the opener in the first half, while Lomana LuaLua and Efstathios Aloneftis sealed AEK’s destiny in the second half.

Elsewhere, in Group 2, Miljan Mrdakovic scored for Apollon but it was not enough to prevent a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Enosis Neon Paralimni, while Olympiakos Nicosia topped AEL Limassol with the same scoreline, with Nigerian striker Chidi Onyemah scoring both goals for the home side.

In Group 3, Ethnikos Achnas beat Alki Larnaca 3-2 away from home, while Ermis Aradippou and AEP Paphos shared the points after an entertaining 3-3 draw.

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