Dreadful Olympiacos Waste Nikopolidis Heroics

By Zain Alvi | 30th September 2009

Dreadful Olympiacos Waste Nikopolidis Heroics | read this item

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Antonis Nikopolidis As the Olympiacos team bus got closer and closer to the Finsbury Park area, I am sure veteran goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis began to relive some of the greatest moments of his career at the highest level. From his invaluable contribution in Greece’s historic Euro 2004 win to his consistency during his club’s league triumph over the last three years, Nikopolidis is no stranger to success at a grand stage.

Judging by his side’s listless performance at The Emirates Tuesday evening, however, it seems that playing away to Arsenal proved a stage that was too grand to handle. The Greek giants had been unconvincing on matchday 1, when they barely managed a 1-0 win against a disciplined visitor in AZ Alkmaar. As visitors themselves, the legendary Zico’s men were far from disciplined.

Most attacking threats were easily dealt with by Arsenal while the occasional promising shot on target was not good enough to go past an increasingly impressive Vito Mannone. The defense, meanwhile, was even worse as Robin van Persie flirted with their backline with almost no apprehension. Clearly, the reason why Olympiacos refused to fall behind in this game was the heroic performance on display from the man between their sticks.

Antonios Nikopolidis may be 38 years old, but his reflexes can embarass the youngest of his counterparts. With a string of impressive saves in the first half, he ensured that the Gunners entered the tunnel with an extremely frustrated look on their faces. In particular, Arsene Wenger looked astonished from the touchline as he sought to draft a halftime plan that would go on to finally beat Nikopolidis.

In the second half, the proceedings picked up from exactly where they had left off before the interval. The hosts created plenty of chances from a gamut of different positions and yet, there seemed to be absolutely no way past the visiting goalkeeper. Such was the amateurish vulnerability of the Olympiacos defense that they let William Gallas take a touch or two to control a ball he had picked up at point blank range from Nikopolidis in the latter stages of the game.

To their relief, Gallas was still denied by the composed Greek veteran who had certainly merited a clean sheet by that time. Unfortunately for him, football is a cruel game, especially when one’s team is not playing like a team at all. Arsenal had seen enough and there was no way their fluency would be denied by a one-man show from the Olympiacos goalkeeper.

In the 78th minute, Eduardo slid a sneaky ball into the path of Robin van Persie, who gave Nikopolidis no chance at all with an unstoppable drive from close range. Although Andrei Arshavin later rubbed the salt into the wounds of the visitors by scoring a second goal from a dubiously offside position, a 2-0 scoreline was the least that Arsenal had deserved against a horrendously underperforming Olympiacos side.

There had been quite a few lifted eyebrows when the Arsenal Box Office, as well as Arsenal Online Ticketing, had to resort to the rare tactic of opening the ticket sale of this fixture to the general public. Perhaps seeing the quality of Olympiacos can explain why most Gooners opted to stay away from such a one-sided game. Nevertheless, the Arsenal supporters who attended got a good return on investment as their side took solo command atop Group H at the expense of an extremely unfortunate Antonios Nikopolidis.

Was Arsenal the better side? Have your say below!

Zain Alvi says:

September 30, 2009 at 11:50 pm

I disagree, Thomas. PSV Eindhoven came to the Emirates and knocked us out (albeit with extremely negative tactics) of the Champions League a couple of years ago. So basically, if you’re in the CL, you’ve got to at least show up in a game, which Olympiacos certainly didn’t!

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Thomas O'Loughlin says:

September 30, 2009 at 6:25 pm

Zain, you are correct in saying Olympiacos were awful but isn’t a bit unfair to expect big things from a team from one of the minor leagues. Teams like these cannot afford to compete with the likes of Arsenal nor can they attract players of top quality. Also a team playing at home is expected to dominate the game. While Arsenal did their job, they are in an easy group and will qualify with ease and their first test will be the first knockout round.

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