Our team claimed a 4-1 victory over Enosis Neon Paralimni in the second pre-season friendly match, held at the Apollon Columbia Training Center.<\/p>\n
Head coach Sofronis Avgousti made several experiments and rotations, giving playing time to all available players, except Josef Kvida and Peter Leeuwenburgh who were rested. Notably, the young players who recently signed their first professional contracts also received significant minutes.<\/p>\n
Apollon\u2019s starting eleven for the first half was: Kuhn, Malekkidis, Lam, Vouros, Siikkis, Brown, Ljubic, Rodrigues, Dione, Youssef, Castel.<\/strong><\/p>\n Our team started strongly and opened the scoring in the 8th minute. Following confusion in the opponent\u2019s box, Youssef attempted a close-range effort, Kuster made the initial save, but Castel was well-placed to convert the rebound for 1-0. In the 20th minute, Malekkidis delivered a cross to the far post where Rodrigues calmly finished to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n In the 32nd minute, Apollon missed a great chance when Rodrigues set up Youssef, but his shot narrowly missed the target. The third goal came in the 40th minute, again from a Malekkidis cross, this time headed into the net by Marques.<\/p>\n For the second half, coach Avgousti made several changes, starting with: Stylianou, Zmrhal, Adoni, Vouros (Poliviou 59\u2019), Shikkis (Ch. Charalambous 59\u2019), Weissbeck, Spoljaric, Rodrigues (Zinonos 59\u2019), Duodu, Vrikkis, Marques (Rotis 77\u2019).<\/p>\n ENP reduced the score in the 60th minute with a penalty successfully converted by Museliani. Earlier, Vouros had cleared a shot from Laca off the line to keep the clean sheet intact at that point. Weissbeck threatened in the 67th minute with a long-range effort that went just wide, but in the 73rd minute he scored with another shot from distance, which took a deflection and found the back of the net for 4-1.<\/p>\n In the 78th minute, P. Charalambous replaced Douontou, and in the 83rd minute Marneros (Poliviou) and Papadopoulos (Ch. Charalambous) also came on.<\/p>\n This friendly against ENP was the team\u2019s final test on Cypriot soil before departing for the Netherlands, where the second stage of pre-season preparations will take place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our team claimed a 4-1 victory over Enosis Neon Paralimni<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":100971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[163],"tags":[1201],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n