AEK Beat OFI 3-0 With Three Goals From Corners

By Taki Panos

Some wins are built on flair. AEK's 3-0 win over OFI on Saturday night was built on corner kicks, and honestly, there is something satisfying about that. Three corners, three goals, three points, and a team that now sits one point behind Panathinaikos near the top of the Super League. As Kathimerini summed it up in its match report, the Cretans almost never managed to threaten the AEK goal at Allwyn Arena.

The match closed out the Saturday side of matchday 6, and for long stretches it was not a classic. AEK had most of the ball from the start, while Christos Kontis's OFI sat deep and looked to break. That is a perfectly sensible plan on the road against one of the big clubs, and for 40 minutes it mostly worked. The trouble with a plan built on keeping things tight is that one set piece can undo all of it.

The first half had more arguing than shooting. OFI wanted a foul for a duel between Kontro and Pilios near the AEK box, and Kontis was booked for his protests. Then AEK had a Koutesa goal ruled out for a foul on Kostoulas, with Marko Nikolic picking up a yellow card of his own on the touchline. Referee and VAR agreed both times, which at least spared everyone a week of replays on Greek television.

Just as tempers were rising, Filipe Relvas settled things. Lovro Majer swung in a corner in the 41st minute and the Portuguese center back met it with a powerful downward header for 1-0. It was a defender's goal in the best sense: attack the ball, beat everyone in the air, go celebrate. It also changed the shape of the night, because OFI now had to come out of their shell, and that was never their plan.

AEK should have doubled the lead in the 56th minute. Koutesa did well down the side, Majer laid it back, and Koita had the goal at his mercy but steered his shot wide of the right post. Moments like that usually come back to bite you, and for a while it felt like this one might. A one-goal lead at home is a nervous thing, and every supporter in the stadium knew it.

Then OFI made life much harder for themselves. Aitor Cantalapiedra, already booked for kicking the ball away after a foul, was shown a second yellow in the 65th minute for pulling back Koita as he broke forward. With ten men, OFI had to choose between chasing the game and protecting the scoreline, and they could not really do either. You could see the energy drain out of their press after that.

AEK still rushed a few chances, Zini's effort in the 77th minute among them, according to To Vima. But the dead balls kept coming. In the 83rd minute Razvan Marin delivered a corner and Harold Moukoudi headed it in for 2-0. Deep into stoppage time Marin sent in another one, OFI failed to clear, and substitute Mijat Gacinovic finished it off for 3-0. Two center backs and a substitute, all from corners.

I know some fans roll their eyes at goals from corners. I don't. Set pieces are a real weapon in a tight league, and a team that scores three times from them in one night has clearly put in the hours on the training ground. When open play gets sticky, which it will over a long season, that is a very useful habit to have. Nobody asks how a goal was scored when the table comes out in May.

The table looks good for AEK, too. They are on 14 points after six games, one behind Panathinaikos, who lost the derby to Olympiacos on Sunday, as we covered in our Olympiacos 1-0 Panathinaikos report. OFI stay on 10 points, still a perfectly respectable start for the club from Heraklion, and nothing about this result should change that.

Both teams now head into big European weeks. Both reports say AEK start a ten-day stretch in England with UEFA Champions League games against Shakhtar Donetsk on October 14 and Manchester City on October 20. OFI travel to France to face Rennes on October 15 in the UEFA Europa League. That is a serious test for both, and AEK at least leave with their confidence up and their set-piece routines in good working order.

If you are following from abroad and want to catch those European nights, our guide on how to stream Greek soccer live is a good place to start. Away nights in England are rarely gentle, so a side that can score from a corner against anyone is not the worst thing to pack for the trip.

My take: this was not a performance that will end up in a highlight package of the season, but it was a professional one. AEK did the job, kept a clean sheet and found a way when the football was not flowing. For more stories like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. Ugly wins count the same, and good teams collect a lot of them.

Sources: Kathimerini, To Vima.

Image: AEK fans at Agia Sophia Stadium by Demian vi, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).