Substitute Armando Gonzalez struck twelve minutes from time as Olympiakos beat Sparta Prague 1-0 in Piraeus to make it three wins from three in the Europa League. The Greeks dominated from start to finish — 23 shots, 14 corners — but needed their Mexican striker, known as La Hormiga, to finally break Sparta's resistance.
Dominance without a goal
Olympiakos arrived with a perfect record and a formidable defensive run — four clean sheets in their previous five matches — and from the first whistle at the Karaiskakis they pinned Sparta back. Imanol Alguacil's side, who won 1-0 at Marseille on Matchday 2, racked up 13 shots in a first half that somehow ended goalless, Sparta's discipline summed up by bookings for Jaroslav Zeleny and Roman Macek as the Czechs defended their box.
Sparta were no soft touch: the Czech champions arrived unbeaten in the competition, having won 4-1 at Ararat-Armenia and drawn with Lillestrom, and riding a five-match unbeaten run in all competitions. But Olympiakos's own momentum is formidable — Alguacil's side have now won five in a row across competitions — and the Greeks played like a team that expected to win, their press forcing Sparta into hurried clearances and their set-pieces, fourteen corners in all, keeping Surovcik permanently occupied.
Roman Yaremchuk led the line for the hosts, with Gelson Martins and Jota Silva either side of Chiquinho, but Sparta goalkeeper Jakub Surovcik and his back four stood firm, and the longer the game stayed level, the more the tension grew in Piraeus.
Gonzalez delivers from the bench
Alguacil turned to his bench on 62 minutes, replacing Yaremchuk with Gonzalez — the 23-year-old Mexican who had already opened his Europa League account against Jagiellonia — and on 78 minutes the change paid off, Gonzalez striking the winner that the balance of play had long promised, as theScore's match centre recorded.
Sparta, to their credit, never stopped running, and late substitutions Enoch Singhateh and Jonatan Braut Brunes added fresh legs, but Stefan Ortega finished the night without a save to make — a remarkable statistic for a 1-0 game, and a measure of how completely Olympiakos controlled the spaces that mattered.
The final numbers told the story of the night: 23 shots to 11, 14 corners to three and an expected-goals count of 2.26 to 0.58, with Sparta failing to register a single shot on target. It was not pretty, but it was utterly controlled — the hallmark of this Olympiakos side under Alguacil. The remaining fixtures are listed in UEFA's official league-phase schedule.
So what: Olympiakos perfect, Sparta stall
Olympiakos join the nine-point group at the top of the league phase, with three wins and a defence in formidable form powering their push for a top-eight finish and a direct route to the last 16. They travel to Rennes on Matchday 4, on Thursday 5 November, in one of that round's standout fixtures.
Sparta stay on four points — a win at Ararat-Armenia and a draw with Lillestrom now followed by a first defeat — and their play-off hopes take a hit. They host Bournemouth, also perfect after three games, on Matchday 4 in a game that has become close to must-win for the Czech champions.
Beyond the Final Whistle: this is what a serious Europa League team looks like — patient, suffocating and ruthless when the moment comes, with a bench that changes games. Gonzalez is becoming a cult hero in Piraeus, and Olympiakos's perfect start is no accident: few in this competition defend better. Are Olympiakos dark horses to win the Europa League? Let us know in the comments.
