Sydney Olympic’s strong free flowing attacking football sadly wasn’t enough to beat APIA Leichhardt on Sunday night, with the Belmore team suffering a 2-1 loss at Lambert Park.
Sydney Olympic dominated the opening half hour of the game, having strong breakthroughs down the wing and opening up opportunities for Olympic strikers Antoniou and Ferreira in the middle.
An unlucky corner and good header from Leichhardt No.13 David D’apuzzo in the opening fifteen minutes of the game saw Leichhardt regain confidence.
Olympic were given some good free kick opportunities after some misplaced tackles by the oppositions defence, with one sailing just above the bar and another being saved by the Leichhardt keeper.
Olympic came out in the second half similar to the first, dominating possession and showing greater ferocity over Leichhardt.
Their good efforts were rewarded with a well worked goal in the 62nd minute, which was finished by Antoniou from a great team effort. Stolen by Ferreira who played it down the wing to Parkhouse, sending it across the middle to Antoniou who smashes it home from within the six yard box.
The final ten minutes of the match saw APIA press harder into Olympic’s half. A loss of concentration towards the end saw APIA deliver a cross to Chris Payne, who was left unmarked at Olympic’s back post. The striker headed the goal in the 87th minute, breaking the hearts of Olympic fans as the result ended 2-1.
Suffering another last minute goal similar to last week, head coach Terry Palapanis was disappointed with the result believing that his team “dominated the match”.
The Greek Herald spoke about Sydney Olympic’s performance with the head coach after the game.
“Just a lapse of concentration at the end…. We had quite a few chances but a lapse of concentration and a bit of luck on their end, balls in the back of the net and you lose the match.
“Yeah played them off the park in my honest opinion.”
Sydney Olympic face Marconi Stallions away at Club Marconi Bossley Park next week, hoping to gain their first victory of the season.
“We played the champions (APIA Leichhardt) and we played them off the park so thats something we can go into confident next game, but it’ll be a tough game,” Terry says.
