The football season has officially kicked off in Greece. In the first games of the season, champions AEK Athens easily overcame the obstacle of PAS Giannena at the Olympic Stadium by 2-0 and PAOK had a hard time up against a well-prepared Asteras Tripolis side in Toumba.

Both AEK and PAOK have difficult European games ahead of them this week that will determine which competition they will be playing in, so these results will help boost morale.

In Athens, Marinos Ouzounidis gave a chance to some of the players that aren’t often included in the starting line-up in order to have his key men fresh for Tuesday’s game against Hungarian side Videoton. Despite this, not much seemed to change for the yellow-and-blacks as they were dominant for the majority of the game, maintaining possession of the ball, creating plenty of opportunities and, at times, playing impressive football.

Newcomer Ezequiel Ponce seemed very comfortable in his new position up front, having a great partnership with fellow forward Marco Livaja. In fact, it was the two of them that provided the two goals for AEK, one in each half.

At the 37th minute, Livaja received the ball from Bakakis in the area, went past a defender and set up Ponce nicely who placed the ball in the back of the net with a calm shot. Ten minutes later, it was Bakakis again with the one-touch pass towards Livaja, who this time decided to take the shot himself and was rewarded by his first goal of the season and AEK’s second for the night.

For PAOK, it wasn’t as easy as the Asteras Tripolis coach, Savvas Pantelidis had set up his team nicely on the pitch. In addition to this, the many substitutes used by PAOK manager Razvan Lucescu ahead of Wednesday’s clash with Benfica, didn’t seem to be able to coordinate with one another.

Despite all of this, PAOK still created a few chances in front of the Asteras goal but it seemed unlikely that they would open the score. Until the questionable decision by referee Aristomenis Koutsiaftis came at the 57th minute, when Sakhov chipped a clever forward pass towards Prijovic who beat goalkeeper Papadopoulos to the ball. There seemed to be a contact between the two players, with the PAOK striker going down inside the box and the referee pointing to the spot. Prijovic did not miss, giving his team a highly needed victory.

In other games that were played on Saturday, AEL defeated Apollon 0-1 at the Georgios Kamaras Stadium in what can only be considered a bad game to watch, thanks to a goal from Milan Deletic on the 30th minute and Atromitos were able to escape with a 1-2 win from Panetolikos’ home ground after Koulouris found the net twice.

Super League Greece Day One Results:

AEK – PAS Giannena 2-0 (37′ Ponce, 47′ Livaja)
PAOK – Asteras Tripolis 1-0 (58′ pen. Prijovic)
Apollon Smirnis – AEL 0-1 (30′ Deletic)
Panetolikos – Atromitos 1-2 (42′ pen. Mazourek / 36′, 76′ Koulouris)