Greek Super League club AEK Athens have defeated English Premier League outfit Blackburn Rovers 2-1 at a wet Sydney Football Stadium.
Festival of Football Match 3AEK Athens (GRE): 2 (Nacho Scocco 21', Nikos Liberopoulos 24') Blackburn Rovers (ENG): 1 (Phil Jones 82')
Venue:Sydney Football Stadium
On a wet and miserable night in Sydney, Greek club AEK Athens picked up where they left off from their 5-3 win over Sydney FC with a goal from Nacho Scocco after some good lead-up play from Nathan Burns down the right. The former Adelaide United man took on the Blackburn Rovers defence before playing into the area where the Athens forwards worked it out amongst themselves before Scocco finished calmly.
Athens went two goals ahead when a brilliant cross from Leonardo was finished expertly by Nikos Liberopoulos giving Rovers keeper Paul Robinson no chance and marking AEK's dominance on proceedings.
Blackburn tried desperately to get back into the match in the second half after losing 2-1 to Rangers on the first match day but almost went three behind when Burns had a great chance to loft Robinson. Athens had a further few chances to score but were snuffed out by a determined Rovers defence.
In the 82nd minute, the Rovers hit back through Phil Jones who nodded home from a perfect Morten Gamst Pedersen cross to give the Lancashire club some hope but it was too late for an equaliser as AEK made it two wins from two whilst the Rovers slumped to their second defeat of the tournament.