It was a must-win game for Olympiacos, and the Greeks passed the test with ease. Indeed, victory was secured after roughly four minutes as the home side stormed to a 5-0 lead, they scored four action goals, then a penalty – while Hannover barely created any danger.
After building this massive lead, the Greeks gave themselves some siesta-time – netted a lonely penalty goal in the second, though at least their defence worked well and killed four man-downs (missed three in front).
The second half was much livelier and entertaining – Olympiacos finally offered something for the fans, netted three more in 2:10 minutes to go 9-2 up. It did not look nice from Hannover’s perspective but at least they could score more in the fourth, which saw nine goals, and four of those landed in the Greeks’ net.
Still, the difference was telling – the total number of shots mirrored that (34-21) but especially those on target (25-10). Having only ten shots on goal well could be regarded an all-time low in the Champions League, though the Germans scored eight goals at least. Another interesting piece of stats was that 15 of Hannover’s 21 shots were taken by two players, Basic and Benic – the remaining six were shared by five players and four did not even take an attempt… Though one should note that Hannover is in a transition period after last years’ F4 appearances.
How they saw it
Igor Milanovic, coach, Olympiacos
“We considered this game as preparations for the championship playoffs. We respected our opponent, played pretty well, though made some mistakes in defence and for a half period in the middle of the game we weren’t that effective in our man-ups. But at the end I’m happy with the team’s performance.”
Karsten Seehafer, coach, Hannover
It’s not easy to play games like this for our young team. Nonetheless, after our bad start in the first quarter we came back a bit, we could defend well in some man-downs, so the 15-8 is OK for us in the pool of Olympiacos.”
