Greek Roundup

Olympiakos beats Aegaleo 2-0 to retain lead

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Christos Patsatzoglou netted one goal and Lambros Houtos added another as Olympiakos Piraeus defeated Aegaleo 2-0 Sunday, keeping a 14-year unbroken record of beating the Athens suburban club.

With its victory -- the seventh of the season -- the Piraeus squad remained at the top of Greece's first division soccer league with 26 points from 12 games.

PAOK Thessaloniki trounced lowly Panachaiki Patras 4-0, with two goals each from Nikos Froussos and Yiannakis Okkas, to retain second place with 24 points, one ahead Panathinaikos Athens.

The Athens club beat Kallithea 1-0 with a goal scored in the third minute of second-half injury time by 38-year-old Polish veteran Krzysztof Warzycha.

In other action Sunday: Akratitos 0, Panionios 3; Ioannina 0, OFI 0; and Xanthi 1, Iraklis 0. On Saturday, Proodeftiki beat Aris 3-1.

Sunday's games ended the last round in 2002. The league resumes with the 13th round on Jan. 5.

Olympiakos faced Aegaleo on a muddy field that hampered play. Aegaleo squandered a chance in the eighth minute when a powerful shot by Anastassis Agritis skimmed the Olympiakos post.

The Piraeus club almost went ahead in the 23rd but goalkeeper Mahamadou Sidibe made a fingertip save to a header by Stelios Yiannacopoulos.

Six minutes before the end of the first period, Patsatzoglou scored his third goal of the season, heading the ball into Sidibe's upper left corner.

In the 51st, Aegaleo's Agritis gained the ball after a goalmouth melee but his slow shot was easily stopped by 'keeper Dimitris Eleftheropoulos.

Olympiakos was awarded a penalty in the 78th but Predrag Djordjevic's shot was denied by the woodwork.

Four minutes later, Sidibe slipped in the mud and failed to stop a shot from Houtos.

PAOK overwhelmed last-place Panachaiki. The Thessaloniki squad controlled play throughout, not once allowing the Patras players to threaten Kyriacos Tohouroglou.

Froussos put PAOK ahead with a penalty in the 11th and Cypriot striker Okkas added other in the 34th.

Okkas struck again in the 62nd, dribbling past two defenders to stretch the score to 3-0. Froussos sealed the visitors' fate, scoring four minutes before the final whistle.

Playing at home, Panathinaikos besieged the Kallithea area from the start, launching successive attacks. But its players could not break through Kallithea's well-organized defense.

Before scoring, Panathinaikos' best chance came in the 88th when a blistering shot by Croatian striker Goran Vlaovic hit Foto Strakosha's crossbar.

Warzycha, one of three other strikers sent in by coach Sergio Markarian in the second half, exploited a mistake by Strakosha to grab the injury-time winner.

 

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