As everyone expected and declared before kick-off, this was a completely different game to the previous fixture in the league. With their backs against the wall, Panathinaikos were looking for a reaction after two consecutive defeats, Ivan Jovanovic brought fresh legs into the starting line-up, and his players fought with all their might, using every means possible – or as much as the referee tolerated – to try and turn the tie around after a 2-0 defeat in the first leg at the Toumba.

Razvan Lucescu, for his part, chose the well-known recipe, he kept only Stefan Schwab on the bench, throwing Thiago Dantas into the fray, while he again chose to have his players keep their lines high and press the home team’s build-up from the first pass.

The game had a frenetic tempo from the first minute, with the ball constantly going from one end of the pitch to the other, but without many good chances in front of goal for either side, until the 17th minute, when Konstantelias’ shot was blocked by a huddle of bodies and then Andrija Živković missed the target from the rebound. In the next phase of play, Panathinaikos found a goal to take the lead. Cerin was well positioned outside the area, and he stepped forward before hitting a powerful, low shot into the bottom right corner which beat Kotarski to put the Greens back in contention.

Until the half-time break there were no other significant chances apart from an effort off target by Sporar right at the end of the half.

Razvan Lucescu made a change at the start of the second half, swapping Schwab for Douglas. PAOK improved the circulation of the ball and in the 52nd minute found the net through Khaled Narey, but the «goal» was ruled out for offside.

Two minutes later Panathinaikos then had a good opportunity with Mancini getting a header goalwards but not quite finding the target, while in the 56th minute the match referee Petri Vilanen showed leniancy in not giving Kourbelis a second yellow card after a stray elbow on Narey. It took 18 minutes until the next big moment, with PAOK in control.

In the 74th minute Ingason fired in a snapshot from inside the penalty area, but the goal-bound effort hit a defender’s body and went out for a corner. Konstantelias executed the flag kick, Schwab rose to head the ball on, but it was stopped by Cerin’s hand. The referee consulted the monitor during the VAR review and pointed to the spot. Oliveira stepped up and slotted a low effort into the bottom right corner of Lodygin’s goal to make it 1-1, essentially ending the case of qualification in the 78th minute.

Nothing changed until the final whistle in terms of the score, and so PAOK qualified for the semi-finals of the Greek Cup for yet another season, where they will face Lamia.

Team lineups:

Panathinaikos: Lodygin, Vagiannidis, Sarlija, Kourbelis (66′ Sanchez), Puchacz (80′ Juankar), Çokaj (46′ Mancini), Perez, Cerin, Palacios (80′ Kleinhesler), Sporar, Bernard (65′ Ioannidis).

PAOK: Kotarski, Sastre, Ingason, Koulierakis, Rafa Soares (85′ Vieirinha), Dantas, Augusto (46′ Schwab), Narey (79′ Taison), Konstantelias (88′ Biseswar), A.Zivkovic, Oliveira (87′ Thomas).