OMONOIA EARN FIRST EVER CONFERENCE LEAGUE WIN

Omonoia started slow, but finished strong, and won 4-0 at home to Icelandic side Vikingur Reykjavik. The visitors from Iceland were hard to break down, but Omonoia broke through, and the floodgates opened up. Senou Coulibaly broke the ice(no pun intended), and a pair of late goals from Andronikos Kakoullis and another from Saidou Alioum closed things out.

After going winless in their first ever UEFA Conference League campaign in the 2021-2022 season, Omonoia have their first ever win in the UEFA Conference League, and just their second win in the main stage of any European competition, the first being a win at home to Greek side PAOK in a UEFA Europa League group stage match in 2020.

Omonoia hosted Vikingur Reykjavik at the Stadio GSP in Nicosia. It was the visitors with the first real chance after a tentative start, off a corner the ball came to Nikolaj Hansen, and Fabiano had to be alert to make the save. Fabiano then did very well to deny deny Danijel Djuric from point blank range, on what looked like a certain goal.

Omonoia got their first chance when Mariusz Stepinski managed to dribble around the Vikingur keeper Ingvar Jonsson, but failed to pull the trigger. Stepinski then passed for Loizos Loizou, who did well to open a shooting lane, but his shot went over the bar. The last chance of the first half came to Simic, who let fly from a bad angle, and Jonsson turned it aside. At halftime, there was no score.

Omonoia came alive in the second half, and a corner set up Senou Coulibaly who headed it past Jonsson into the bottom corner to give Omonoia the lead in the 51^st minute, the Malian defender continues to have a knack for scoring goals in European competition.

Vikingur looked for an equalizer, the substitute David Atlason seemed to catch Fabiano off-guard, but the Brazilian keeper was relieved to watch the chance go wide. Then, Dadi Jonsson fresh off the bench had a feeble attempt also miss the target.

Instead Omonoia got their insurance marker. Simic had a shot deflect to Charalambos Charalambous, whose centering attempt was spilled by Jonsson, and Andronikos Kakoullis was all too happy to pounce on the loose change, and fire it home to make it 2-0 for Omonoia.

Some fresh legs would make it 3-0, Saidou Alioum stole it from Peter Ekroth at midfield and ran down the line, dribbled past two defenders and while it wasn’t the best finish, it was still enough to slide under Jonsson and into the net in the 86^th minute.

The late onslaught continued, as Kakoullis rounded Jonsson, and with no red shirts in sight, Kakoullis had the option to either give Alioum another goal, or give it to Omer Atzili, but instead he took it himself into the empty net as the clock hit 90.

Omonoia(Valdas Dambrauskas): 40. Fabiano(GK, Captain), 2. Alpha Diounkou, 5. Senou Coulibaly, 30. Nikolas Panayiotou, 24. Amine Khammas, 80. Novica Erakovic(’67 31. Ioannis Kousoulos), 20. Mateo Maric, 11. Ewandro Costa(’46 76. Charalambos Charalambous), 21. Veljko Simic(’84 10. Omer Atzili), 75. Loizos Loizou(’84 99. Saidou Alioum), 14. Mariusz Stepinski(’67 9. Andronikos Kakoullis)

Vikingur Reykjavik(Arnar Gunnlaugsson): 1. Ingvar Jonsson(GK), 20. Tarik Ibrahimagic(’39 24. David Atlason), 6. Gunnar Vatnhamar, 4. Peter Ekroth, 22. Karl Gunnarsson(’77 5. Jon Gudni Fjoluson), 25. Valdimar Thor Ingimundarson, 11. Gisli Thordarson, 21. Aron Thrandarson(’65 8. Viktor Andrason), 19. Danijel Djuric, 17. Ari Sigurpalsson(’65 9. Helgi Gudjonsson), 23. Nikolaj Hansen(Captain)(’77 30. Dadi Berg Jonsson)

Andrew Mantzas

Twitter: @MantzasNC