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Ajax to play Apollon Limassol in first round of UEFA
Cup
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| Appolon Limassol |
24 August: Today's draw for the first round of the UEFA Cup,
at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, has brought an opponent Ajax
are supposed to easily brush aside: Apollon Limassol from
Cyprus. The first game is in the Amsterdam ArenA, on Thursday,
13 September. The second leg will follow two weeks later on the
27th, in the national GSP Stadium (capacity 27,000) in the capital
of Nicosia. Apollon's own Tsirion Stadium in Limassol is under
construction.
Ajax could have bumped into several tougher opponents. The
Amsterdammers were a seeded side in group three of the draw.
The remaining opponents Ajax could have been paired with
included Torpedo Moscow (Russia), Dinamo Bucharest (Romania),
Kilmarnock (Scotland), HJK Helsinki (Finland), FC
Príbram (Czech Republic), Silkeborg IF (Denmark) and NK
Gorica (Slovenia).
Apollon FC was founded on 13 February, 1954, in Limassol, a
city of 155,000 inhabitants and the second largest of Cyprus.
Limassol is situated on the south coast of the island state in
the Mediterranean Sea, south of Turkey. Apollon is referred to
as 'the Blues'. The club won the national championship in 1991
and 1994, and grabbed the Cyprus F.A. Cup five times, in 1966,
1967, 1986, 1992 and 2001. The latter Cup victory meant access
to this year's UEFA Cup tournament. Apollon's somewhat
disappointing sixth position in the league would not have been
sufficient for that. During the current pre-season campaign,
coach Andreas Mouskallis was replaced by former Liverpool star,
Ronnie Whelan.
The club's twelve European campaigns (not including one
Intertoto Cup participation) show that Apollon should be
considered one of the Mediterranean island state's major
football clubs. Seven times, their European adventures
terminated in the first round, while the second round was
reached four times. Two years ago, in 1999, Apollon had its
most succesful European campaign ever, in the European Cup
Winners' Cup, reaching the third round, at which point Greek
side Panionios proved too strong.
The 2001-2002 season has not started yet in Cyprus. The
first game against Ajax, on 13 September, will be Apollon's
third 'real' game of the season, after having eliminated SK
Tirana from Albania in the qualification round for the UEFA
Cup: a 3-2 defeat in Tirana was wiped out by a 3-1 win in
Limassol. The league starts a few days later, with a home game
against Omonia Nicosia.
Apollon's topscorer of last year was tall striker Victor
Zubarev from Kazachstan, scorer of 20 goals in total. He also
scored 21 goals in 39 games for his national team. Other stars
in Apollon's team are the 35 year-old veteran and captain,
Charalambos Pittas (an impressive 82 games for the Cyrpus
national team) and the tall Serbian midfielder, Milenco
Spoljaric, who scored 12 goals in last season's league and
played 21 games for Yugoslavija.
It is only the second time for Ajax to play an opponent from
Cyprus in a European Cup tournament. The first and only other
time was in 1979-1980, as Omonia Nicosia was eliminated in the
second round of the European Champions Cup. The home game in
Amsterdam was won in decent style (10-0), after which Ajax
embarrassed itself and insulted its fans by allowing the
small-timers to win the second leg, 4-0. The bizarre 10-4
aggregate was, of course, good enough to advance.
REACTIONS
Co Adriaanse: "Looking at their power and play, this is a
good draw for us, indeed. Also, I think the circumstances in
Cyprus will be better than if we would have been paired with
Torpedo Moscow. I know the club, by the way. In January of
1999, I've been to Cyprus with Willem II, and we played against
Apollon as well. I know the environment, the stadium and the
club. (...) The league in Cyprus starts on 15 September. Until
then, they'll only play some test matches. We will definitely
go watch a few of those."
Nikos Machlas: "Especially if we continue playing like we
did against Celtic on Wednesday, it really shouldn't be a
problem to reach the next round. I know their stadium from the
games I played there with the Greek national team. The pitch is
not that great, but it's the most beautiful and modern stadium
on the island. (...) I also think it's an advantage for us that
the league starts late over there, just like in Greece. We
surely could have had a worse draw." (MP)
(Source: Apollon-FC.com [profile]
and Ajax.nl [quotes])
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