Debut delight for Markarian

Sergio Markarian, making his UEFA Champions League debut as a coach, was delighted with Panathinaikos FC's performance as they got their UEFA Champions League campaign back on track with a 2-0 away win against AC Sparta Praha.

Winning run
The former Paraguay national team coach took over from Ioannis Kyrastas on 18 December and now boasts a record of seven wins from his first nine matches. Tuesday's victory, along with six straight domestic league wins, have seen Markarian become an instant fans' favourite and the 57-year-old Uruguayan was in high spirits after the match at the Letná stadium in Prague.

'Very satisfied'
"I am very satisfied with the result," Markarian said. "I think we have a great team and that we deserved to win. This was a very important and difficult match for us but we prepared well for Sparta's style of play. Our goal is to win the Greek championship and finish as runners-up in our Champions League group. Yesterday we were bottom of this group, today we are in second place and that is good but we must concentrate from now on."

Philosophical in defeat
Sparta coach Jaroslav Hrebík was philosophical in defeat, acknowledging that his side did not deserve to win the match. A creditable 3-2 defeat against Real Madrid FC in their opening Group C fixture was followed by a tremendous 1-0 away win against FC Porto. Libor Sionko scored the winner that night but was unable to repeat his heroics against a resolute Panathinaikos defence expertly marshalled by captain Ioannis Goumas.

'Deserved to win'
"Panathinaikos absolutely deserved to win the match," Hrebík said. "We have many injuries at the moment and we sold six good players during the winter break. Neither side played great football tonight and our opposition waited for us to make mistakes. Unfortunately, we did and we were punished. This match showed us the differences between our team before and after the winter break. Their second goal was a result of mistakes by four of our players and it helped Panathinaikos tactically."

Second place
The win moves the Greek side into second place, five points adrift of leaders Madrid who beat Porto 1-0 at the Santiago Bernabéu in the other Group C match on Tuesday. Having failed to score in their previous two Champions League matches, Giorgios Karagounis and Michael Konstantinou ensured that Panathinaikos bucked their goal-shy tendencies with well-taken strikes either side of half-time.

Full of confidence
Konstantinou was full of confidence after the win, saying: "It is great. We wanted to win and we came away with the three points. Next week [against Sparta] we will score more goals than we did tonight."

Looking for revenge
The two sides meet again on Matchday Ten later this month and Sparta will arrive at the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium looking for revenge. Panathinaikos, who are yet to concede at home in the competition so far, will have a new-found confidence and, under the guidance of Markarian, will be hoping to claim the runners-up spot behind unbeaten Group C leaders Madrid.

'Forwards played better'
Sparta captain Jirí Novotny summed up the match. "We wanted to build on our good performances in the first two matches but we lost players during the winter break and their replacements are not as experienced," he said. "The Panathinaikos forwards played much better than ours tonight."