Apollon suffer first loss of the season

Apollon suffered their first loss of the season against a struggling Anorthosis team. The match was played at home by Apollon at the comfortable surroundings of the Tsireio where they can continue the strong start to the season while Anorthosis were playing to show that there is still life in them and they will be a tough opponent to anyone who takes them lightly.

Anorthosis players came prepared and went to attack from the get go while the Apollon players were full of nerves. A long range shot that should have been held easily by the Apollon keeper Bruno Vale was spilled and Michal Duris was the most alert and jumped on the rebound and had the calmness to round up the keeper and roll the ball across the line. Another early mistake by captain Giorgos Vasiliou who played a short back pass which was intercepted by Ricardo Laborde who started a counterattack. The pass across goal to Duris was a fraction long and a missed chance for Anorthosis to double up the score.

The early scare got Apollon to wake up and realize they have a game to play. The Apollon players started showing their attacking play that has been getting everyone in the Blue-white corner of Limassol to talk about a championship. Another mistake by Apollon to give the ball away cheaply in their half saw Englezou crossing and Duris getting at the end of it and converting from close range.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Apollon now went into shock mode and coach Sofronis made his first change in the end of the first half bringing on Maglica to add to his attacking options. Maglica returned the favour by scoring with a header from a rebound early in the second half. The second half became a siege of the Anorthosis goal but young goalkeeper Dimitris Demetriou stood the tallest with a little help from the goalposts. Anorthosis held on till the last whistle of the referee to come back from Limassol with all the points. Apollon hit the posts 4 times during the game just for the mentioning.  

Apollon need to recover from this first loss of the season quickly as they will be hosting a European encounter midweek before the top of the table contest with neighbours AEL. The mistakes were costly to Apollon and they need to cut on them as they cannot always rely on the forward line outscoring their rivals.