The real PAOK is back
What defines the big clubs? Is it in the way they react? It’s character? How they handle both the good times and the challenging moments? The truth lies in a combination of all of the above. PAOK has given enough examples of all of those things this season and the team will continue to do so whenever its demanded of them. Because it can. Because this is a great team and anyone who doubts that received another reminder on Wednesday night. PAOK produced a dominant display to defeat Panathinaikos 2-0 at the Toumba Stadium in the first leg of their quarter-final tie of the Greek Cup and put themselves firmly in the driving seat for a place in the semi-finals.
It’s true, in last weekend’s match at the ΟΑΚΑ between the same two team PAOK was below-par. And just like every other team PAOK can have an off day (or more than one off day). Nobody has said otherwise. Anything else implied will receive the importance it deserves when the dust settles.
Because, in all truth, there was only one team in it at the Toumba on Wednesday, and it was PAOK. The passion and the intensity was there. The quality which the team has was also clear to see. There was also a healthy dose of aggression, but that makes sense when you are trying so hard and giving your all. The players got over that part quickly. After the first 45 minutes, it was all about pure football. Panathinaikos was lucky to escape a severe beating, and this is by no means an exaggeration. Lazaros Lamprou had three golden opportunities to kill the tie off completely. But Sokratis Dioudis had luck on his side and kept the Greens in the game.
Even with that said, PAOK still has the upper hand in the tie, thanks to a goal in each half from Vieirinha (playing at right-back) and Fernando Varela.
PAOK started on the front foot and had some good chances to open the scoring, but after the first 15 minutes Panathinaikos managed to react and play their way back into the game. This forced Alexandros Paschalakis to make one important save, to deny Dimitris Kourbelis’ shot which took a wicked deflection and almost deceived the PAOK goalkeeper.
The Dikefalos tou Vorra finally opened the scoring after 34 minutes. Dimitris Pelkas was put clean through on goal and was about to pull the trigger before he was fouled by Emanuel Insua. Vieirinha stepped up to send Dioudis the wrong way from 12 yards and set PAOK on its way at 1-0 up going into half-time.
In the second half, it was one-way traffic as Abel Ferreira’s team took control and missed a strong of chances up until the 72nd minute with Pelkas , Diego Bieswar, Mauricio and Lamprou all guilty of profligacy in front of goal.
On 72 minutes though, the second breakthrough came when Vieirinha arched over a free-kick from the right which was met by Varela, who sent the ball into the bottom right corner of Dioudis‘ net with an impressive diving header to give his team a significant advantage to defend in the second leg.
For the rest of the game substitute Lamprou took on a leading role but he missed two further great chances to score, while Panathinaikos failed to respond. The two teams will meet again at the OAKA in Athens next week.
Team lineups:
PAOK (Abel Ferreira): Paschalakis, Vieirinha , Ingason, Varela, Giannoulis, Misic, Mauricio, Limnios, Biseswar, Pelkas (62’ Lamprou), Swiderski (81’ Akpom).
Panathinaikos (Giorgos Donis): Dioudis, Insua, Schenkefeld, Pouggouras, Johansson, Kourbelis, Anuar (78’ Donis), Chatzigiovanis (54’ Nagy), Zahid, Bouzoukis (81’ Perea), Macheda.
