The women's team is the cleanest thing at this club right now
Panathinaikos women beat OFI 4–0 at the VAK for the fifth round of the A' Ethniki Women's, and the club's own site reports 0–4 from the away fixture in round six (5)(6). Six rounds, no defeats (6). No complaints about the pitch, the referee, the schedule.
Meanwhile the men's first team sits second in the Super League on 21 points from eight games, +14 on goal difference. Both teams are winning. Only one of them is getting talked about, and it is not the one with the perfect record.
The Olympiacos loss was the floor, not the story
October 11, Olympiacos 1–0 Panathinaikos in Piraeus. That result looked like the moment the autumn turned sour. It did the opposite.
Get the next Panathinaikos brief by email
This article went out to subscribers as a brief. Get the next one straight to your inbox, free.
Free · No spam · Unsubscribe anytime
Since then: 2–1 at home to Borac Banja Luka, 5–1 against Asteras Tripoli, 5–1 away at Kairat Almaty, 1–0 away at Volos. Four wins, twelve goals scored, two conceded. The last five league and European results read L W W W W.
The Kairat result is the one that matters most. A Greek side travelling to Kazakhstan in late October and winning by four is not a fluke of a bad opponent, it is a squad that has stopped treating away games as an inconvenience. Volos 0–1 was uglier and worth more. One goal, clean sheet, three points on a Sunday when nothing clicked. Title challengers need both kinds of afternoon.
Sunday against AEK is where this gets decided
AEK at home on November 1 at 18:30 CET. That is the first genuine test since Piraeus. Everything in the run above came against opposition Panathinaikos should beat, and they mostly did.
Win this one and the form line stops being a purple patch and becomes a case. Lose it and second place starts to look like a position built on the soft part of the calendar, with Olympiacos already gone over the horizon.
There is a schedule problem attached to it. CSKA Sofia at home in the Conference League on November 5, then Iraklis away on November 8. Three matches in eight days, and the AEK selection tells you what the coach thinks the Conference League is worth this year.
What to watch
Name the AEK lineup when it drops. If the strongest eleven starts on Sunday and the Sofia game gets rotated, the league is the priority and the club is telling you so. If it is the other way round, that is a different season than the table suggests. Then watch November 5 and November 8 for whether this squad has the depth to hold a run together, or only the quality to start one.
