Two poor reactions, and two goals at the start of the second half were enough to cost PAOK the chance to come away from the OAKA in Athens with a positive result. In short, this summed up in a nutshell how the match against Panathinaikos unfolded, as PAOK struggled with build-up play and allowing the home side too much space to threaten in attack.

The first half was a closely-contested affair and although PAOK did not have as much of the ball as PAO, it was the Dikefalos tou Vorra who had the best chances to score. Karol Swiderski fired wide when clean through one-on-on with Sokratis Dioudis, while both Mauricio and Dimitris Limnios failed to hit the target from good positions.

Panathinaikos ended the first 45 minutes by putting the ball in the net, but Federico Macheda’s «goal» was correctly ruled out following a VAR review for handball. The Italian was on target again four minutes after half-time, however, and this time his expertly-taken penalty kick after Christos Donis had been fouled by Ingi Ingason counted and the home side went 1-0 ahead.

In the 56th minute, Tasos Chatzigiovani took advantage of some poor defensive play from PAOK and beat Zivko Zivkovic to double the advantage at 2-0.

With the introductions of Diego Biseswar, Dimitris Pelkas, and Chuba Akpom, PAOK attempted to give more attacking impetus to their play and get back into the game, but Panathinaikos, spurred on by the confidence of their 2-0 lead, managed to hold on and claim the three points.

Team lineups:

Panathinaikos: Dioudis, Insua, Schekenfeld, Pouggouras, Johansson, Kourbelis (71′ Anuar), Donis, Chatzigiovanis (77′ Nunez), Zahid (83′ Bouzoukis), Nagy, Macheda.

PAOK: Zivkovic , Matos , Varela, Ingason, Giannoulis, Esiti (60′ Biseswar), Mauricio, Limnios, Vieirinha (70′ Pelkas ), Misic, Swiderski (70′ Akpom)