Cefisia showed good signs inside the Allwyn Arena, but it wasn’t enough to hurt AEK. Instead, Union found three goals in the first half, played some layered football and won 3-0 to close out the Super League regular season in perfect fashion. The visitors scored a goal.
Mandalos, Jovic and Koita stood out for AEK Athens and left them alone at the top of the Super League table (60 points after 26 games). The Union will enter the playoffs as leaders after Olympiacos drew 0-0 with AEL Novibet at Karaiskakis (the Piraeus club reached 58 points), while PAOK lost 2-1 in Volos (57 points for the “bicephalos to the north”).
The match…
Kifisia put high pressure on AEK and tried to make it difficult for Nikolic’s team to move. The Union were fortunate to see Mandalos gesture to Koita on 5 minutes to make a vertical move, he took the ball out to him, the Moorish winger evaded Laroussi who tipped him over with his arm, referee Fotias and VAR awarded a penalty and Jovic shot well to make it 1-0.
Kifisia continued to press high up the pitch against AEK, who moved the ball with more composure and saw Koita make a good buka from the right on 11 minutes, but couldn’t find a teammate. The Moorishman returned to the wings – after the game against Celje – and showed that that’s the ONLY place he should be playing!
The visitors almost equalized on 14 minutes due to a mistake by the AEK defense. Souza’s cross into the AEK area, Vida made a miscalculation, the ball was laid on to Antonis, who was probably caught off guard and his attempted shot sent the ball out of bounds.
AEK continued to send deep balls to Koita, with Mavritano turning the ball over on 16′, Jovic getting a one-timer on the ball and Ramirez making a difficult corner save. In the next minute, luck helped the Union. Ramires went out of position and misplaced a pass, Koita got the ball, avoided Rukounakis and shot. The ball bounced off Petkov, changed course and ended up in the net for a 2-0 win for the Yellow and Black. Own goal for the Union!
AEK continued to play simple, layered and serious and at 26 minutes they were 3-0 up. From a nice cross from Pineda to Pelio, the Union back took a counter and with a parallel turn into the area and Varga sent it into the net from close range. More celebrations at the Allwyn Arena, with Leto then making two changes, switching his entire left flank, with Huhumi and Nunelli taking the place of Laroussi and Antonis.
On 32 minutes, Kifissia came close to scoring. Souza was caught in the AEK’s area, passed the ball to Pombo who shot from the half-circle, but the ball stopped at Strakosa’s left post and went out of bounds. That was the last important play of the first half, along with a direct foul by Pombo (the ball went out of play for a moment). It’s also worth mentioning that the visitors called for a penalty, for a hand by Pineda, with the referee and VAR not awarding an infringement.
At the start of the second half, Nikolic brought on Zini for Varga to give AEK more pace, offensively. Kifissia gained yardage on the pitch, moved the ball around, but once outside the big Union area, they were in trouble.
The AEK coach freshened up his lineup even more, bringing Eliasson and Gatchinovic into the game on 62 minutes. The visitors dominated until 70′, with Pereira making his presence felt even more in the suspensory role. But on 72′, Zini got in a terrible foul shot from outside the area and forced a great save from Ramirez. Three minutes later, the young Yellow and Black striker was unable to score with a close range effort from an assist by Pilios.
AEK thus cut off the momentum the visitors had been building for several minutes, with Nikolic bringing on Grujic for Pereira. Kifissia tried to threaten again and succeeded in doing so on 83 minutes. From a corner kick, AEK had a lasting phase in Strakosa’s box, Petkov made the pass and the Albanian goalkeeper made a save from a corner. Nikolic made another substitution, protecting Pineda from a card and bringing in Sahabo for his yellow-black debut.
The game’s finale found everyone at the Allwyn Arena celebrating and Mario Iliopoulos giving Marko Nikolic a big hug.
