Olympiacos won the 1997–98 Championship. Bajević's team, along with AEK and Panathinaikos, were closely separated in the table, but finally Olympiacos made an important away win against Panathinaikos (0–2) and celebrated the second consecutive Championship, with three points difference from Panathinaikos. Olympiacos participated for the first time in the UEFA Champions League group stage and took third place in a tough group, leaving Porto in fourth place, while Real Madrid, the eventual champions, topped the group and qualified for the quarter-finals. The 1998–99 season was undoubtedly one of the best seasons in Olympiacos history. They won the 1998–99 Greek Championship quite convincingly, with ten points difference from AEK and 11 from third-placed Panathinaikos, and also celebrated the domestic double, bringing home the 1998–99 Greek Cup after a convincing 2–0 win against arch-rivals Panathinaikos in the final (Mavrogenidis 54', Ofori-Quaye 90'), despite the fact that they played for more than 60 minutes in the game with ten players. In European competitions, they entered the 1998–99 UEFA Champions League group stage, being drawn in a group with Ajax, Porto and Croatia Zagreb. They won the group and qualified to the quarter-finals, gathering 11 points with 3 home wins against Ajax (1–0), Porto (2–1) and Croatia Zagreb (2–0) and two away draws in Porto (2–2) and Zagreb (1–1). In the quarter-finals of the competition, they faced Juventus, with the first leg in Turin. Juventus took a 2–0 lead, but Olympiacos scored a crucial away goal in the 90th minute of the game with a penalty by Andreas Niniadis, a goal that caused the 10.000 Olympiacos fans who travelled to Italy to erupt into joyous ecstasy. In the second leg in Athens, Olympiacos totally dominated the match, and scored the goal that put them in the driving seat in the 12th minute of the game, when Siniša Gogić's powerful header found the back of the net after Grigoris Georgatos's superb cross. They also missed an outstanding chance to double the lead, when Giorgos Amanatidis' powerful header from short distance was saved by Michelangelo Rampulla. Olympiacos kept the ticket to the semi-finals in his hands until the 85th minute, when Juventus, who hadn't produced any chances in the game, equalised the score after a crucial mistake by Dimitris Eleftheropoulos, who had been the team's hero in all the previous games. Despite the big disappointment from the way the qualification to the semi-finals was lost, the