APOEL has achieved nothing more than just becoming a regular team. Why should we not laugh: in the games with Hermes, AEK, Paphos and tonight (20/1) with Apollon, which gave him the qualification to the quarterfinals of the cup, he had just mature appearances and not impressive.
Even that, however, can be considered a feat based on where the team was two weeks ago. It seems far away, but only 15 days have passed since the match with Doxa, in which the blue and yellows were defeated for the fourth consecutive game and after the end Nektarios Petevinos stated that APOEL is the worst team in the league. And it probably was…
This change is of course credited to Savvas Poursaitidis and his associates. The Greek made APOEL a team again, winning the players and making not something terrible, but small and substantial changes. He himself said after the qualification that they do not exist… magically. He also said something else that is very important: “It is not APOEL that I imagine playing at the moment, but the foundations are definitely being laid for it to happen”.
And this is the truth. If it is possible for an APOEL player to fly in the clouds, believing that his team has returned to the level it deserves. Clearly he did not. But the great thing about the whole case is that it shows that he has the background to do it – albeit gradually – even though such a thing seemed impossible until recently.
Beyond that, the biggest gain that APOEL keeps is that it stays alive in claiming a European ticket. Because before the derby, Petevinos stated that they have not stopped thinking about the way of the championship for Europe, but bad lies, with a difference of 16 points from the fourth place that gives a conditional ticket, will look like a miracle if the blue and yellows they make it from there. Winning the cup is clearly a more realistic goal and this is now the priority of Poursaitidis' team, at the same time, of course, finishing at least in the top six, so as not to write a black page in its history.
