AEL continued their impressive start to the season beating Pafos FC and maintaining their lead at the top, but it was Doxa Katokopias who stole the headlines over the weekend with a comfortable demolition of champions Apoel, while Paralimni and Alki picked up their first points of the season.
Apoel suffered perhaps their biggest home defeat in their history as they were humbled by Doxa 5-2.
Those who had watched Apoel’s opening two wins of the season could not have expected an easy game for the champions but few would have expected the ease with which Doxa took the three points.
Doxa though more than deserved the win and if anything the score flatters Apoel. A team that has perhaps less than a tenth of Apoel’s budget were a joy to watch with their quick, direct and incisive play.
Doxa’s centre forward Sadik was in irrepressible form hitting a hat-trick and was denied a fourth by the post.
Sadik opened the rout in the third minute with Apoel goalkeeper Boy Waterman guilty of ball watching.
Zatl added a second just before the half hour mark with Apoel’s defence in disarray. Sadik got his second and third for his team before the break beating Waterman with a low drive from the edge of the penalty box.
From the restart (46th minute) Papafotis added a fourth laying to rest any hopes Apoel may have had of a miraculous revival.
Apoel were a shambles. They resembled a pub team still suffering from an extended hangover. Their expensively-assembled team was slow, predictable and devoid of any passion.
The change of manager earlier this month did little to improve the side and the management should start looking elsewhere for reasons of Apoel’s (gradual) demise.
AEL continued their impressive start to the season and maintained their perfect start to the season with a difficult 2-0 away win over a battling and to a large extent unlucky Pafos FC.
The Limassol team’s man of the match was undoubtedly their second string goalkeeper Procek who was standing in for the injured Vozinhia for the second consecutive game.
Procek made a number of excellent stops to deny Pollici, Holt, Loulinia and Sirok.
Early in the game Procek was beaten by Rasic but the goal was disallowed for offside. Initially the referee had overruled his assistant’s raised flag but after consulting him and apparently the cameraman he reversed his decision.
AEL took the lead in the 48th minute through Jurado after a melee in the home side’s penalty box and as Pafos FC poured forward in search of the equaliser, AEL countered and doubled the score with a crisp strike by Andreas Avraam four minutes from the end.
After four games, AEL not only have a perfect points tally they have also yet to concede a goal.
Anorthosis surrendered two more points as they could only draw against a battling Alki.
Anorthosis were by far the better side and dominated play from start to finish but were unable to breakdown Alki’s stubborn defence that was excellently marshalled by goalkeeper Pardo.
Enosis Neon Paralimniou picked up their first points of the season after defeating Ermis Aradippou 2-0.
The first half produced precious little with Ermis being slightly the better side. Two goals though in a 10-minute spell early in the second half by Pittas and a Rasmussen penalty were enough to get Enosis off the mark.
Enosis’ coach Andre Paous praised his players for following his gameplan and said that his team will only get better.
The final two games of the round took place on Monday night due to Apollon and AEK’s involvement in the Europa League.
Both enjoyed 1-0 home wins with AEK beating Omonia and Apollon seeing off Nea Salamina.
