22/1/2007 OLYMPIAKOS 1 - 2 APOEL. Fans hail heroic performance.
Olympiakos lost 2-1 to league leaders APOEL on Sunday but once again the referee played an important role in this defeat. For the second match in a row the Olympiakos defensive midfielder is sent off with no apparent reason while the opposing team is allowed to fire-at-will against our players without even a hint of a yellow card. The game did not start badly for Olympiakos whose 4-5-1 formation seemed to control the flow of the match. APOEL was allowed to have plenty of ball-possession but they only created one goal opportunity in the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately for Olympiakos, APOEL found the way to score with Solari on the 23rd minute of the match. Ten minutes later the referee waved away the appeals of Olympiakos players for handball and handed a penalty to APOEL instead, as Nikolaou was judged to have pulled Solari's shirt in the box. Solari stepped-up to convert the penalty, sending Giallouris the wrong way. The referee continued to make "mistakes" and six minutes later tried to finish-off the game prematurely. APOEL's Pinto brought Godwin down with a strong tackle from behind. Godwin appealed for Pinto to be yellow carded for the unsporting challenge but the referee decided otherwise, showing Godwin his second yellow card and leaving Olympiakos with 10 players with the greatest of ease. Olympiakos fans expected the worse but the players did not give up the fight, putting up a heroic performance. A minute after the sending-off Pittas hit the post with a close range header giving the signal that Olympiakos would not capitulate. In the second half APOEL continued to have long spells of possession but the Olympiakos defence was holding well with Giallouris making some fantastic saves in his last match for Olympiakos before moving to Greece. In the 64th minute Tiago found the way to send a cross in the APOEL area and Nikolaou headed the ball home. Rotsa tried to help his team offensively by replacing Georgiou with G. Nikolaou but unfortunately Olympiakos did not create any more goal opportunities as the one player deficit proved difficult to overcome.
It was yet another abysmal refereeing performance which this time got "punished" with a low mark (7.9) from the Referee Committee of the Cyprus FA but which again left Olympiakos with defeat.
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