Olympiacos played its first friendly, Tuesday afternoon, for this season in Schwatz, Austria, against Azerbaijan’s Simurg and prevailed 2-1.
MÍchel was most likely to try many things in this opening friendly-test match for the side. The starting squad included both “fresheners” and some old “acquaintances”. Megyeri was the goalkeeper; Salino on the right, Cholevas on the left and Siovas with Avraam Papadopoulos took the defense.
Three players featured in the midfield; Maniatis and Fejsa defending and Alejandro Dominguez atop. David Fuster was placed in the left wing, Vladimir Weiss in the right, and Diamantakos at the center of the attack.
In 8’, Maniatis defended vigorously and intercepted the ball in the midfield, which he then passed to Diamantakos. The latter took on the curly, inner-foot shot and delivered the ball at the right top corner of Kapsa’s goal for our side’s opener. In 34’, Contreras tried to save the ball while falling but a handball was charged. Novrouzof took the penalty kick but sent the ball way up off target.
The second half set out badly for Olympiacos. It was no later than in 46’ that Zrnanovic availed himself of Olympiacos idle defending and netted it smoothly from close range. In 55’, Kostas Mitroglou confirmed once again why he is considered to be a “top” striker; he executed a magnificent “nutmeg”, created some space for himself and charged in the box. His shot landed in Simurg’s net for the final 2-1!
Then, Simurg couldn’t even take the ball past the midfield… The match ended with Olympiacos displaying a good performance and taking its first friendly -yet important- win.
