PAOK traveled to Livadeia without the injured Douglas Augusto, as well as Koulierakis, Michailidis and Brandon , with Razvan Lucescu throwing Kargas, Omar El Kaddouri, Tsaousis, and Gordeziani into the battle, with the young forward taking a starting berth for the first time in his professional career.

And the Double-headed Eagle began the match strongly, taking control from the early stages. They had most of the possession of the ball but did not find a way to break down the multi-faceted defense of the home team. The first significant chance came in the 28th minute with Dantas playing a ball in behind the home defense, but Narey was not able to make a good contact with the ball and Markovic gathered it comfortably.

In the 33rd minute, Narey managed ot get to the lef byline and square the ball across the goal, but none of his teammates were in the ball’s path. However, as the phase of play went on, Lyratzis then played in Kurtic but he sent the ball wide with a shot on the move.

In the 44th minute, the best chance of the first half came with Gordeziani producing an impressive scissor kick in the penalty area that Markovic was forced to parry away for a corner kick in equally impressive fashion.

In the second half, PAOK came out with even more intensity and in the 48th minute missed an incredible triple chance to take the lead. Lyratzis sent over a cross, Kurtic headed the ball onto the crossbar, before Narey shot straight at an opposing defender on the rebound, while the arriving El Kaddouri then crossed but the ball hit a home player and went out for a corner. A minute later Kargas threatened with a header but he missed the target.

Lucescu then brought on Oliveira, Biseswar and Vieirinha in the 61st minute, and within one minute the visitors missed another great chance with Kargas heading the ball goalwards only for Bahanak to clear it off the line, before Ingason contrived to miss the target on the rebound.

In the 72nd minute, Vieirinha was substituted as he felt some discomfort and could not continue, with Konstantelias taking his place, and Živković dropping back intto a left-back role.

In the next phase the goal finally came for PAOK. Biseswar produced an excellent cross to Narey, who despite being well-marked, he proved the strongest and stayed on his feet to slot the ball past Markovic for the opening goal.

Levadiakos began to take more risks in the last part of the match, as they went in search for an equaliser. PAOK continued to find spaces in the home defense but failed to lock up the victory and paid dearly for it in the third minute of added time in hte dyning embers of the game. After Kotarski’s attempted clearance from a free-kick into the PAOK penalty area, the ball fell kindly to Belmont, and he made it 1-1 with a shot from the edge of the box.

In the final phase of the match, Lucescu’s team was left with 10 players after A. Živković was dsmissed for a bad foul just outside the PAOK penalty area, with Kotarski having the answer to deny the subsequent set-piece from the home team to keep the score at 1-1.

Team lineups:

Levadiakos: Markovic, Mejia, Vinicius, Moutinho, Skvarka (Bahanak), Doumtsios, Liagas, Toro (Belmont), Nikas, Panagiotou, Tsapras

PAOK: Kotarski, Tsaousis (Vieirinha 61′, Konstantelias 72′), Kargas, Ingason, Lyratzis, Dantas (Biseswar 72′), Kurtic, El Kaddouri (Schwab 83′), A. Zivkovic, Narey, Gordeziani (Oliveira 62′).