Blanco strikes as AEK blanks Iraklis

By: Peter Katsiris | January 19th, 2009

AEK continued its undefeated start to the New Year, with a slim 1-0 win over Iraklis in Thessaloniki as Dusan Bajevic’s men finally cracked their winless away streak in the Super League this year with a clean sheet sweep at the Kaftanzogleio Stadium.

With presidential matters somewhat distracting the club during a critical time affecting AEK’s European dreams, the ‘Enosi’ extended a refreshing streak of solid results to at least keep one half of the ‘Dikefale’ happy.

While last weekend’s win over PAOK was truly monumental, as the defeated side looked to be replacing AEK within the top three of the Super League this season. The momentum from last week’s win didn’t transfer fast enough against Iraklis, as the hosts were offered the first opportunity of the match and Denis Epstein forced AEK ‘keeper Sebastian Saja into a save after just two minutes.

Quickly redirecting traffic, AEK began to roll into action with a series of aerial attacks raiding Pawel Kowalewski’s goal. While Sotiris Kyrgiakos whistled a header wide of the Iraklis goal after just seven minutes, the first meaningful effort for AEK came nearly ten minutes later as Rafik Djebbour narrowly put the visitors ahead when he attempted a header off a free-kick from Angelos Basinas.

Four minutes later Ignacio Scocco came close to pushing AEK ahead, but again Iraklis was saved by Kowalewski who managed to block Scocco’s strike.

Managing to stay level until halftime, Iraklis’ limited creativity left the ‘Gireos’ back line exposed in the light of AEK’s dominance in offense.

Surprisingly it was Iraklis who held the upperhand early after the restart, and with a quick combination within the Iraklis midfield led to Anestis Agritis breaking away and beating Saja to give Iraklis what they thought was an early second half lead. Much to the dismay of the home crowd, the goal was called off as the linesman at the far end had labelled the scorer as offside before the ball was slotted home.

Not discouraged by the rejection of their goal, Iraklis resumed its attack just forunites later as Epstein again had an opportunity to put his side ahead. While he was accurate in the second half, precision was lacking on the hour mark as the German midfielder placed his effort just wide of the goal.

Iraklis was penalized for that miss about eight minutes later, as a rather quiet Ismael Blanco left his mark on the match as of sixty-eight minutes. A corner from Greece international Basinas first arrived at the head of Scocco, who found Blanco wide open with a header and the latter made no mistake from his gifted position in the box and AEK slipped ahead with a 1-0 lead.

Looking for a second consecutive 1-0 win, AEK began to assert its defensive grip on the match as Iraklis’ pressure going forward rapidly grew out of existence.

A last gasp effort on the stroke of stoppage time was the last try for the Thessaloniki-based club to equalize, but Dimitrios Giantsis fired high and wide of AEK’s net and the Athenian giants held on for a 1-0 win in Thessaloniki.

Iraklis FC 0-1 AEK Athens
Blanco 68′

Yellow Cards:
Iraklis FC – Perperidis 67′, Sarakatsanos 79′.
AEK Athens – Juanfran 78′, Saja 90′, Basinas 90′.

Iraklis FC (Makis Katsavakis): Kowalewski, Perperidis (77′ Giantsis), Ioannidis (78′ Bourbos), Vukovic, Papazaxarias (87′ Kiko Raton), Katsambis, Epstein, Foufoulas, Sarakatsanos, Garcia, Agritis.

AEK Athens (Dusan Bajevic): Saja, Majstorovic, Juanfran, Nsaliwa (72′ Pliatsikas), Djebbour (86′ Edinho), Basinas, Blanco (90′+ Geraldo Alves), Pellieteri, Kyrgiakos, Georgeas, Scocco.

Referee: Marios Lambropoulos

Venue: Kaftanzogelio Stadium, Thessaloniki, Greece.