AEK and Anorthosis, the two teams leading the Cyprus football championship, both came back from a goal down to defeat Olympiakos and Alki respectively over the weekend, while Apoel’s match at AEL on Monday night was interrupted in the 39th minute due to crowd trouble, but restarted later.
The final score was 0-0.
There was also drama in Nicosia in Monday’s other match, with Apollon heaping more pressure on struggling Omonia after a 1-0 away win for the Limassol side in added time.
Leaders AEK could have been three goals down against Olympiakos in the opening half hour but for some excellent saves by their Spanish goalkeeper Pablo who was beaten just once by Migelito in the 28th minute.
In their first sniff of goal, a couple of minutes after going behind, AEK equalised through their top scorer Florian Taulemmeuse and from there on dominated the game.
Ivan Triscovski netted the winner shortly after the break in a second half where AEK were rarely troubled by Olympiakos.
AEK coach Imanol Idiakez was a relieved man after the game saying that even though they knew that their opponents would play on the break, they were unable to defend properly and almost paid the price.
Anorthosis had even bigger problems against Alki and only managed to take the three points thanks to Araz Abdullayev’s strike late on in the game.
The Famagusta team were the better side in the opening half but were wasteful in front of goal and went behind in the 53rd minute after Tigrudja Suroy beat Harush from outside the penalty area.
Anorthosis equalised through Cisse in the 73rd minute and laid siege on Alkis’ goal for the winner.
However this left huge gaps at the back but Alkis’ forwards failed to take advantage and they were made to pay the price with Abdullayev’s late winner.
Doxa Katokopias defeated Ermis Aradippou 2-1 and leapfrogged Pafos FC into sixth place.
Ermis took the lead through Randou but Doxa fought back to take the three points with two goals in the final 15 minutes through Sadik and Asamoa.
Two late goals also decided the match between two teams fighting for first division survival, Nea Salamina and Aris.
Constantinos Mintikkis opened the score for Nea Salamina in the first minute of added time while Korreia made sure of the points with a second five minutes later.
http://cyprus-mail.com/cyprus-football-highlights-2017-2018/
