When Giorgos Masouras came on as a substitute early in the second half and found the net in his first contact with the ball, Olympiacos beat Aris 1–0 at Georgios Karaiskakis in the match of the 18th round of the Super Liga Liga.

Mitchell Gonzalez’s team was left alone in third place and -3 away from AEK, forcing Aris to suffer a second loss in their last three games.

Thanks to overlaps, pressure in half the court, as well as a good passing game, the Thessalonians managed to keep the ball away from Julian Questa’s goal. Everyone would quickly forget the first part if it were not for the 43rd minute phase.

Bradley Mazikou passed for the defense of Olympiacos, passed to Oleg Reabchuk and Sokratis Papastatopoulos, and Vladimir Darinda sent the ball into the goal of Alexandros Paschalakis. The assistant went for a cross, but VAR had a different opinion, since the Czech midfielder was offside and the goal was not counted.

Another match in the second half. Mitchell fired a cross for Masouru and the Greek winger scored 56 seconds into the field, scoring the ball to James Rodriguez.

Wanting to take advantage of the moment, the Red-Whites pressed, and Cuesta parried a strong Cedric Bacabu corner kick in the 50th minute. Much more difficult, but also impressive, was the intervention of the Spanish goalkeeper in the 71st minute at the close point of Pep Biel, which he made a remarkable individual effort when Masura was unable to send the ball into the undefended goal.

Alan Pardew put everything he had into the attacker on the field, but Aris never converted a “clean” moment. Instead, Cuesta had to intervene both in Biel’s foul in the 81st minute and, most importantly, in the four with Youssef El Arabi in the second minute of stoppage time.

The 1-0 score has not changed until the end: both teams extended their appointment to Wednesday (18/1) in the first leg of the Greek Cup quarter-finals.

Source: RES-IPE