The two best teams in the country faced off against each other at the Toumba, and the two coaches decided to follow a different approach to the game. PAOK entered the pitch with intensity and passion, and from the start the hosts began to threaten Vaclik’s goal, with the visiting goalkeeper ending the match having made 6 very important saves.

Pedro Martins’s team, for their part, did not take any risks, stopping short of parking the bus but playing very defensively trying to hit the home side on the counter-attack.

In the first 10 minutes, PAOK threatened on three separate ocassions. The first two were from shots by Kurtic, both of which were saved well by the Red and Whites’ goalkeeper, while the Czech keeper also stopped a header from Ingason impressively.

PAOK played high up the pitch and Olympiacos did manage to sporadically find some space in behind the home defence and responded with two half-chances from Tiquinho and Androutsos. In the 14th minute, Biseswar then had another good shot which the opposing goalkeeper saved once more.

In the 21st and 23rd minute, it was then Andrija Zivkovic’s turn to try the reflexes of Vaclik, who thwarted both of the Serb’s efforts.

PAOK had many corners, and several goal attempts, but the first goal finally came from the opposition. In the 42nd minute, Andrija Zivkovic struck a free-kick and Olympiacos defender Ba accidentally directed the ball into his own net to make it 1-0 to PAOK.

Olympiacos’ answer was swift. After a corner, the ball was cleared to the edge of penalty area. Kamara steadied himself for a shot, but the effort was wayward. However, it ended up falling kindly to Tiquinho and he equalized with a header to make it 1-1 and the teams disappeared down into the dressing rooms with that scoreline at -half-time.

In the second half, the pattern of the game was more or less the same story up to the 75th minute. PAOK continued to threaten and create two great opportunities to take the lead. First A. Zivkovic, in the 52nd minute, produced an impressive shot which was stopped by Vaclik, while on the rebound Lyratzis failed to connect well and did not find the target. A minute later, Tsingaras went close with a shot from outside the area which hit the crossbar.

Gradually the pace of the game dropped in the last quarter, and Olympiacos began to try and run down the clock, without creating any significant chances in the second half at all, while PAOK had three more good moments from Jaba, Lyratzis and Kurtic, but neither of them managed to convert and find a winng goal for the home side.

Team lineups:

PAOK: Paschalakis, Lyratzis (87′ Sastre), Ingason, Crespo, Vieirinha (66′ Sidcley), Kurtic (87′ Schwab), Tsingaras (66′ Mitrita), Augusto, Biseswar (40′ Jaba), A.Zivkovic, Akpom

Olympiacos: Vaclik, Manolas, Papastathopoulos, Ba (46′ Ba), Reabciuk, Androutsos (46′ Lala), M. Kamara, M’Vila, A. Kamara (92′ Valbuena), Masouras (90′ Vrousai), Tiquinho (87′ El Arabi).