TEN MAN AEK Athens held on for a 1-1 draw against Hungarian Champions Vidi in Athens tonight. The Greeks, conquerors of Celtic in the Third qualifying round, won this play off 3-2 on aggregate.
They went ahead through a penalty tonight scored by their captain, Mantalos . Vidi levelled the score on the night shortly afterwards through Nego and AEK then got a player sent off for putting his head into the back of an opponent’s head right in front of the referee.
Both sides were poor in both games, frustratingly so looking on from a Celtic point of view. The English commentator noted as the game went into stoppage time that Celtic would have made a much better job of taking care of this Hungarian side.
The referee had added five minutes of stoppage time, this was spent with the AEK keeper catching a ball delivered from a corner completely unchallenged, but he still managed to roll around on the ground for a minute or two. We had seen it all before.
Incredibly two more AEK players went down injured in this stoppage time, with no real reason of course, and it was into the 8th minute of stoppage time before there was any football played, the ball fell to the Vidi skipper at the edge of the D, and he tried to find the top corner with the AEK keeper rooted to the spot. The shot was just too high and narrowly sailed over the bar. The referee blew his whistle for time up but it really was Celtic who blew it big time.
These two teams over the two legs have been very, very poor. What an opportunity lost this has been for Celtic.
Nevertheless AEK have qualified and congratulations to them. You fear for them in the group stages. Zero points must be a real possibility.
