The 37-year old referee was born in Pargas, Finland, and works as laboratory technician. He is regarded as one of Finland\u2019s top referees and is very experienced \u2013despite his young age, he has already taken charge of more than 150 games in his career.<\/p>\n
He earned his FIFA badge in 2009 and became an international referee in 2011. He made his UEFA Europa League debut in the summer of 2009, in a 1st qualifying round encounter between JK Narva Trans (Estonia) and FK Rudar Pljevlja (Montenegro).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the second time that he will meet PAOK, as he officiated their match against Dinamo Minsk on 18 September 2014 that the \u201cDouble-Headed Eagle\u201d won comfortably at Toumba (6-1). That was his first match in the group stage of the competition. This season, he has already refereed the group match between AS Saint-Etienne and FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.<\/p>\n
Gestranius will be accompanied by Jan-Peter Aravirta<\/strong> and Mikko Alakare<\/strong>, the assistant referees, with Jukka Honkanen<\/strong> acting as fourth official. Antti Munukka<\/strong> and Dennis Antamo<\/strong> complete the team as additional assistant referees. <\/p>\n Cypriot Kostas Kapitanis<\/strong> will be the Referee Observer, while Siarhei Ilyich<\/strong> from Belarus is the UEFA Match Delegate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PAOK will meet an old acquaintance in Germany. Mattias Gestranius has been chosen by UEFA to referee their encounter against Borussia Dortmund. Read all about his past meeting with the \u201cDouble-Headed Eagle\u201d. ","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":253599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1520,5],"tags":[1504,6435,5338,5724,6091,6097,6438,7045],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n